


Exorcism

by JoliePrudence



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst and Feels, Coming Out, M/M, POV Armie Hammer, POV First Person, POV Timothée Chalamet, Smut, inspired by a tweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:34:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25099258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoliePrudence/pseuds/JoliePrudence
Summary: Armie heads on a cross country road trip to share some news with his family.  He expects it to be a difficult conversation but he certainly had not anticipated for it to hurt so badly or for his mother to try and exorcise him.Now that he has confessed his true feelings and with his marriage to Liz officially over, he and Timmy have to learn to navigate in this new reality and hopefully find their way back to each other.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 117
Kudos: 142





	1. Exorcism - Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was hesitant to post this when I initially wrote it. The story came to me following a tweet posted by Armie one morning in which he claimed that he had been woken up by his mother sprinkling oil on him and speaking in tongues to exorcise his demons. I was originally supposed to be a one shot (just part 1) but I ended up not being able to stop writing until the boys found their way back to each other.
> 
> 100% fiction. I do not know Armie, I have no idea why his mother would wake him up that way or what happened between them to bring it on. This is simply me putting on "paper" stories I tell myself when i let my mind drift.
> 
> If you feel the need to scream at me, I 100% understand.

[](https://imgbb.com/)

It was bad. All of it was bad. Having the conversation. The things that were said. How she had reacted. All the things I knew were coming, had anticipated and rehearsed to counter. And still, it had hurt. My inadequacy in her eyes, a brutal confirmation of what I had expected yet secretly hoped would be different.

And yet there were things I hadn’t anticipated. Things that increased the suffering I now felt tenfold. I’d expected some screaming, some denial at least but instead, there was nothing. No not nothing, acceptance.

But not acceptance of me; of who I was, of the lie I was finally freeing myself of. No, of course not that. It was the acceptance that I was broken, damaged, spoiled and unclean. She wasn’t even disappointed. I could have dealt with disappointment. No. She was relieved. Relieved that we didn’t have to lie anymore. That she didn’t have to pretend like I was still her son.

I think it hurt more because I could see that she still loved me. And that this was hurting her. I was hurting her by being her son. She would have wanted to be able to simply pretend like I didn’t exist. After all, she had another perfectly good, straight and repentant son that she could fall back on. But she couldn’t erase my existence and I think she hated herself because of it; and blamed me.

She hadn’t even argued when I had told her that I was leaving Liz. That was just one more grievance to add to the list of my sins. I don’t think she had ever really liked her anyway, regardless of how hard Liz had tried to make it happen. She was too emulous of success, to vain, not subservient enough. She disliked all the things I had loved about her; her ambition, her eye for aesthetics and her strength. Beyond that, her biggest flaw had certainly been to not be able to keep me on the right path. As though what lay between her thighs was a miracle cure that she was withholding. Two beautiful and smart grandchildren had not been enough to make up for the fact that this woman hadn’t been woman enough to set me straight.

I was the one to raise my voice when she brought up ‘that boy’ as she called him; the disdain not only apparent in her tone but in the way her face crisped when she said it. She never used his name. I hated the way she referred to him with such derision. As though he had corrupted me in some way. As though I hadn’t been the one to pursue him. 

I tried to defend him. To argue that we hadn’t spoken in months, if not close to a year. Hadn’t seen each other in longer. When she had rolled her eyes at this, as though this separation that to me felt like a lifetime was nothing, I had told her that he had been the one to put things on hold. Trying in vain to make her like him in some way even if it was because he had left me.

I had scoffed at hearing myself say the words. On hold! Because those were my words, not his. Something I told myself to stop my heart from shattering. What he had said was that he was ending it. That he couldn’t do this anymore. That he didn’t want this. Not that he didn’t want me he made sure to specify, but this. Whatever this was. 

I hadn’t stopped him, though I had wanted to. He was 23 at the time, only 24 now I had reminded myself, and he was focusing on his career which was taking him around the world and back. And here I was, a grown man, with toddlers and a wife in tow, getting upset at him when he couldn’t accommodate my time frames and my family obligations. I wasn’t only cheating on my wife, I was making him an accessory. Worse than that, I was keeping him hidden, expecting him to accept half a life with me, lived in shadows, subterfuge and always on a clock.

So he’d left. Gone to Budapest or Jordan or whatever faraway place his latest project called him to and I stayed behind, trying to put the pieces of my broken self back together into a semblance of the person I had been before him. Only I couldn’t remember who I had been then; before that summer in Italy where we had played at falling in love, realizing too late that we were no longer acting, that Oliver and Elio had become extensions of Armie and Timmy.

It didn’t matter what I said though. Because her mind was set and she blamed him; probably because it was easier to swallow the bitterness if she believed I had at least at some point been good. 

It was late when we stopped talking. Or rather when I stopped talking, because she had gone silent a while ago, staring at me blankly while I laid myself bare in front of her, needing her to know me, the person I was now, because of him, or rather for him… even if he would never know.

When I’d gone to my room and was safe behind a closed door, all six and a half feet of me shook violently. I collapsed on the bed and curled into a fetal position, knees tucked close to my chin, everything in me aching for my mother, for the woman who had kissed my skinned elbows and scared away the monsters under my bed. 

I took my phone from my pocket and called Liz. I knew I was being selfish in needing her now, needing her to comfort me and tell me everything was going to be alright but I called anyway. She answered immediately, having waited up knowing I would call. I had texted her before talking to my mother, needing her reassurance and for her to remind me why I was doing this in the first place. 

It was she who had sat me down a few months prior and asked what was going on. Sensing I had changed, that something was different. Eventually, I had confessed. To all of it. Timmy, what had happened in Crema and then through the years that had followed. 

She had been devastated, angry and humiliated. Rightfully so. I had furthered the horror of this for her by asking for a divorce which she predictably refused. Then COVID hit and for the safety of the kids, we had quarantined in the Caymans. The first few weeks had been hell, trying to keep up appearances for the kids, for the world, but eventually, she had stopped being angry and we talked. I was reminded of why I loved her then. Because she was compassionate and even understanding and loved our family more than anything. 

So she agreed to the divorce, wanting Harper and Ford to have loving parents that are friends rather than parents co-existing and hating each other as I had had. And then she’d gone a step further and helped me realize that if I wanted to be the person Timmy deserved I needed to be honest not only with myself but with my family. 

She stayed with me on the phone until I fell asleep; my body ravaged by sobs I was trying to hide and my heart in a million pieces at what I had lost, even if I knew it was a lie; because the lie was the only thing I had ever known.

I was woken up a few hours later to my mom pouring oil on my head and praying very loudly in tongues while standing over my bed so she could get my “demons out” of me. I don’t know why I was surprised. Maybe because that meant she still cared? And somehow that made it more difficult to make a clean break. Those few hours spent on the phone with Liz and then lost in fitful sleep had only strengthened my resolve, however. It was now I who turned passive, letting her finish whatever it was she was doing and when she was done, I packed my bag and left, telling her I loved her as I walked out the door. Bye mommy.

I spent the drive back to L.A. listening to music, feeling the weight of over thirty years of lies crumble brick by brick the further away from Texas I got. I had thought of calling Timmy the second I hit the highway, wanting to let him know what I’d done, wanting to tell him that I love him and I wanted to be with him. But I didn’t. 

I told myself that I was being selfish. That knowing Timmy he would think this was his fault and I didn’t want that. Because It wasn’t. Because regardless of the outcome, I needed my mother to know her son. 

I tried to convince myself that Timmy was young and needed to explore life and experience things without being bogged down by an old man who still had family obligations regardless of whether or not he was married. Life would certainly be easier for him if he was linked to a pretty young starlet that looked good in a gown. I would be lying if I said that it didn't upset me that the fact that the one he had been spotted with recently was no longer in her twenties. Scratch that argument.

I talked myself out of it many times along the way, rationalizing all the reasons why I shouldn’t but the truth was that I was terrified of the rejection, knowing myself well enough to know that I wouldn’t survive him telling me that it was too late. So instead I just drove. 

I wondered when we would cross paths again, thinking it would likely be at an award show or maybe we would run into each other at one of the studios. I had conversations with him in my head, trying to figure out what I would say when it happened, wondering if he’d let me hug him as you do an old friend or if he'd be polite but uncomfortable, looking for someone to save him from me. I hoped I would at least have time to thank him. Thank him for having loved me despite my shortcomings and for having shown me what my life of lies was depriving me of. 

I had stopped for a few hours at a roadside motel after having been on the road for close to 13 hrs, not wanting to waste time by entering a city and finding a decent hotel. I only needed a shower and a few hours of sleep. I called Liz to let her know that I was about 8 hrs from home and would likely be there by mid-afternoon. I don’t know why the rush, but I wanted to get home.

My heart sank for a moment when I pulled into the driveway and saw the For Sale sign already planted firmly in the front lawn. I had offered to move out and leave Liz the house once we returned stateside but she had refused, calling our realtor from the Caymans, stating that it held too many memories to remain there. Some of those memories now no doubt involved Timmy and the time he had lived here with us as we carried on our affair right under her nose; though she had had the grace to not specify.

I grabbed my bags from the trunk of the rental and headed for the door, grateful for the thumbprint recognition locks given how full my hands were. I dropped my bags by the door and flipped the cap of the alarm system pad to punch in the code before realizing it had already been disarmed. I panicked initially, thinking ‘intruder’ but then reminded myself it was likely the housekeeper who had been made aware of my imminent return.

I left the bags by the door and made my way to the kitchen, needing a beer after days of sobriety and the dismantling of my family, my heart stopping when I saw him, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, hands pushed into his pockets, looking even more beautiful than I remembered. 

“Hi. Um, I let myself in, I hope that’s ok. You never deactivated my thumbprint for the door.”

I stared stupidly. Not knowing what to say, everything I had rehearsed on the drive home now sounding inadequate and trite.

“Liz called me last night. She said you were on your way home and would need a friend.”

I couldn’t move. Everything inside me was aching. Even now, despite everything I had put her through, she would do this for me. I didn’t deserve her. My heart was so tight I thought I was having a heart attack. The past 3 and half months replayed at lightning speed in my head and I felt crushed under that sudden realization of it all. I couldn’t even blink, worried he was an illusion and that if I closed my eyes, even for a split second, he would disappear.

“Is it ok that I’m here?” he asked, running a nervous hand through his hair, longer than I remembered, tucking the strands behind his ears. “Do you want me to go?”

He looked tired; older somewhat. Like he had lost some of that baby fat in his cheeks and his chest had broadened slightly. I shook my head slowly, testing to see if my muscles would respond, relieved that they did. I still didn’t know what to say though. 

Seeing as how I was rendered paralyzed by his presence, Timmy crossed the distance that separated us and gave me a tentative hug, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his cheek against my chest, his body quickly finding that spot that had always been his.

“Is this ok?” he asked and I nodded again, every muscle in my body finally relaxing and I pulled him tightly to me, burying my nose in his curls, inhaling deeply at the familiar smell, his hair still smelling like the heat from the sun peeking through the sky on a rainy day.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a while, the words muffled in my chest as he tightened his arms around me.

I shook my head again. We would have plenty of time to talk. I knew we needed too but for now, I just wanted to hold him.


	2. Exorcism - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Armie arrives home after his road trip to find Timmy waiting for him, he is overwhelmed with emotion. He takes the opportunity to tell him everything that has been happening since their separation. He couldn't have anticipated the outcome of their long awaited reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna start with the warnings:  
> **EXPLICIT CONTENT AHEAD!**  
> **ANGST GALORE**
> 
> As usual, 100% fiction. Obviously I diverged for the "actual" timeline and I hope you aren't too upset with me at the outcome.
> 
> I know I had said this would be a 2 part series; however, as I was writing it I realized it had to be more like 3 to stay true to this version of Armie and Timmy's experiences and reactions to said events.
> 
> Writing explicit content is hard for me. I struggle with it badly. All those big girl words and all. So I had help in this chapter from PeachyPerfect.  
> I was lucky enough to watch her write it out live and you wouldn't believe how quickly and effortless it just pours out of her. If you haven't already read her stuff, you definitely should get on that.. like right now. You can come back to this after.  
> [ **Here is a link to her content: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomssweetheart/pseuds/PeachyPerfect**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomssweetheart/pseuds/PeachyPerfect)
> 
> Finally, I had help in the editing department from LostCol, also an equally talented author, who should 100% consider doing this for a living... no pressure there friend!  
> [ **here is a link to her content: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostCol/pseuds/LostCol** ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostCol/pseuds/LostCol)

Exorcism: Part 2 

It was good. Having the conversation, most of the things that were said. I’m not saying it was easy or that it didn’t hurt at times remembering everything we had done, the pain we had caused each other and those around us, but it had felt good to be honest.   
  
I had debated telling him that I was finally ready to be the man he needed me to be. 100%, all in, his. Instead I said that I finally felt ready to be a man who could commit 100% to who he was and who he loved. 

He had paused at this. His lips slightly pursed as he pondered, eyes looking far away as though he was remembering a series of events and trying to determine if they made him happy or sad. I hoped the majority of these were happy; but his silence told me that maybe too many of them weren’t.

Though it seemed insufficient, I told him I regretted not having been able to be that man for him. He opened his mouth to respond but no words came out and I could sense his discomfort. Quickly I added that I wasn’t expecting him to forgive me for having kept him a secret, for having forced him to choose between being seen or being mine. I had just wanted him to know that I was different now and that this was in large part thanks to him. He nodded and smiled but kept his eyes on the floor.

He had asked about my mother and I had told him everything save the part where she blamed him. I made sure he knew that this was all me. That after years of lying I couldn’t do it anymore and it was actually Liz who had helped me find the courage to be honest with my family. Thinking about my mother had made me melancholy for the years when I was a little boy and she had been my world. I had swallowed back tears speaking of this and he had taken my hand in his, not lacing our fingers but caressing the inside of my wrist with his thumb soothingly. Touching him again felt like slipping into bed after a long hard day.

He told me about his conversation with Liz. About how he had almost not answered when she had called, worried that if she was reaching out after all this time, it was either that something had happened to me or that she knew about us. When she had confirmed the latter, all of the guilt that had been festering like a boil in his chest for so many years had ruptured and oozed out in a thick flow of emotional puss. She had been unnecessarily kind he'd said, allowing him to apologize profusely, rambling as he always did when he was nervous. He knew that it meant little in comparison to the scope of what had been done to her but needing to do so anyway… and she had let him, asking only that he check up on me today in return. 

I asked him about Eiza. I had promised myself I wouldn’t; because it wasn’t any of my business and I had no right to this information but the words had escaped me before my brain could even process that it was happening. 

“She’s a friend.” he’d said, non-committal, vague. But then added: “Maybe a little more than a friend.” His eyes were back to the floor.

I felt nauseous, jealousy tasting bitter in my mouth, my throat burning as bile boiled up into my esophagus. He wasn’t trying to upset me, he said; he was simply stating a fact. Because this wasn’t a PR stunt and he needed me to know that. He was done with those games. And even though it wasn't serious, he liked Eiza and he didn’t want to hurt her. 

I knew he was thinking about the PR stunt he had participated in during the release of The King which had required him to maintain the illusion of a relationship with his co-star Lily-Rose; a particularly loathsome type of gorilla marketing using the paparazzi to garner attention for their upcoming movie. Initially Timmy had refused. Because she wasn’t in on it and the big wigs thought it best for it to remain that way, which was disgusting. And I knew that. I agreed that it was. But I’d convinced him to do it anyway. Because people were talking about us again and I was terrified of being exposed. 

So he’d done it, pretended to be in love with her, kissed her, had been an attentive boyfriend when the cameras were around and when he came home to me, ashamed of himself and upset at the person he’d become, I acted jealous and resentful. I was a special kind of asshole.

To change the subject he had asked about the kids and the projects I had lined up once the Covid restrictions lifted and he told me about his family and his plans. He talked at length about how proud he was of his sister Pauline and everything she’d been doing in New York to raise awareness for the BLM movement.

I countered this by telling him how proud I was of him for having marched and for having taken a knee on the frontline, even though the thought of him doing this had made me sick to my stomach with worry when I'd seen the videos appear online. 

He admitted sheepishly that he had been glad that my friend Nick had gone with him to a few of these protests; he asked if I minded that since he had been quarantining in LA he had been hanging out with a few of my friends. I shrugged. My friends had become his when he lived here and therefore I could no longer claim sole ownership of them. I was pretty sure they liked him more than they liked me anyway. I had known about Nick protesting with Timmy, he had told me himself, not wanting me to find out about it online, knowing that I stalked instagram fan accounts when no one was looking. Only he knew this and I loved him for not judging me for it. Of course I didn’t mention that.

At some point, an awkward silence had settled between us and to fill it he had asked me what was going on with all the tweeting I'd been doing and what seemed like a never ending stream of Instagram posts lately. 

I stated that because I had been stuck in the Caymans, it was the only way for me to take a stand against the injustice taking place in our country. What I didn’t say was that I had wanted him to see that I cared too; that like him I believed in what was right and I wanted him to be proud of me the way I was of him. He smiled at me. Closed mouth and eyes sparkling, the corners of his lips twitching and my heart skipped. I remembered this smile. He could tell I was omitting part of the story and he was trying to figure out what it was.

We realized the time once the sun had set and it became necessary to turn on the lights so that we were no longer sitting in shadows. I had asked him to stay for supper, stating we could order in but he shook his head and stood, heading for the front door as I followed. It was getting late and he needed to get home. Eiza was waiting for him. 

We stood stiffly on the porch while we waited for his Uber. I’d offered to drive him but he said it was easier to just get a car. Paparazzi had been trailing him since some rather explicit and unfortunate pics had surfaced online from his Cabo escapade with Eiza. If we were shot together, the rumors would start up again, and he didn’t want to put her through that. There was a finality to the dismissal that stung me.

When the car pulled into the driveway, I gave him a hug and he lingered, face in my neck, raising goosebumps from my nape to my toes. I wanted to ask him if I could call him sometime but I didn’t, once again too afraid of the answer. 

“Are you gonna be ok?” he asked, holding open the passenger side door of a black Lexus with tinted windows. I nodded, smiling reassuringly so he would see that I meant it. Because I did. I might not be immediately but I would be eventually. “Get some rest old man. You look tired.”

I would have argued, but he was right. I was exhausted and didn’t have the energy to feign even mock offense at the insult to my age. In fact I was even too tired to hide the pleasure I had felt at hearing him say those words, because it was what he used to call me when he wanted to be cheeky and I had always loved hating it.

By 8 p.m. I was brushing my teeth and stripping off my clothes. I had slept less than 6 hours in the last three days and if I didn't go to bed soon, I might pass out. I’d settled on the guest room because it felt weird to be in the master without Liz. I’d thought about sleeping in the guest house but then that had been where Timmy had lived when he stayed here and I didn’t think I could stand to be in that bed alone anymore than I could in the other. 

I stared at the ceiling for a while, so tired I was unable to sleep, my body riding the adrenaline rush of having just held Timmy in my arms. I revisited our entire conversation, analysing his facial features, his body language, my thoughts stubbornly procrastinating on the plump fullness of his bottom lip, the way his tongue darted out to lick it before he drank from his beer, or the way he bit it when he was thinking or nervous. My mind meandered to the way his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat when he laughed or the way he tilted his head to the side when he was being coy or he was shy. Eventually my eyes closed and I drifted off, my body no longer keeping up with my brain and I crashed.

I slept so solidly that I woke up in the same position I had fallen asleep in. I took my cell phone from the nightstand and tapped the screen to look at the time. It was well into the morning and I had been out for over 14 hours. I stretched, my body aching from the lack of movement and I wiggled my toes and circled my ankles to get my blood circulating. 

Moving had drawn attention to my bladder which was now actively screaming at me and I made my way to the guest bathroom in the hallway to empty it. I splashed some water on my face and stared at myself in the mirror once I had toweled off. I was surprised to see that although I felt completely different, I looked exactly the same.

A noise coming from the front of the house attracted my attention and my heart soared. Timmy. I rushed to the kitchen and stopped in my tracks seeing Julia, our house keeper, emptying grocery bags into the refrigerator. My stomach sank. Of course it wasn’t Timmy. Liz had no doubt called Julia to let her know I’d be back and to ask her to come and fill the refrigerator with essentials.

Julia jumped at my presence but then smiled warmly. “Good morning Mr. Hammer. Welcome home.”

“Thank you.” I answered moodily, devastated that he wasn’t here, my body shaking with a new rush of adrenaline that coursed through my veins for nothing at all because of course he wasn’t there. Feeling guilty for not being happier to see her I thanked her for making a pot of coffee and grabbed a mug from the cupboard so I could pour myself a cup.

“Oh that wasn’t me sir. It was Timmy. He didn’t want to wake you so he asked me to let you know he’d be waiting in the guest house.”

The cup almost slipped out of my hand but I caught it and set it on the counter before I made a mess. 

I had to stop myself from running to the guest house, barely managing to not speed walk and I burst through the door stopping only when I saw him. He looked up from his phone, that he was scrolling through while leaning with his elbows on the back of the couch and he smiled.

“You really have to reprogram that lock,” he said with a smirk and I barely had time to think ‘smart-ass’ before I had covered the distance that separated us and wrapped him in a hug that almost lifted him off his feet. 

He laughed and hugged me back, passively at first but then after a while, I felt his arms tighten around my shoulders and his face press itself into my neck. My breath caught at the familiar sensation, heat coming from the flush of arousal in his cheeks. I whispered his name into his hair, the sound hoarse and thick with feeling.

His arms tightened even more and I felt him press himself into me, nose grazing the scruff on my jaw, breath warm on my skin. My body responded immediately, my pyjama bottoms providing little barrier between his belly and my hardening cock, the way he was arching his back to press into it, clouding my judgement. There was a power struggle between sensation and sense going on within me. 

But reason scratched irritatingly at abandon, waking up logic and when he fisted his hand in my hair and his teeth replaced his nose on my jaw I pulled back. There was a push and pull of limbs as he tried to regain access to my neck and I pushed him away slightly saying “wait, wait, please wait,” the words whispered, yet sounding stringent and alien in my ears. Wait? What? It was clear by his expression that Timmy was wondering the same thing.

“What?” he asked, mirroring my thoughts, trying once more to pull me closer, pushing his pelvis into my hip when I turned to the side a few degrees, knowing if I allowed my erection any form of friction against his body I'd be lost.

We should talk. There was still so much left unsaid, so many things I needed to apologize for and promises I needed to make before we… Christ, he smelled good. No, wait… I had to explain. There were things I needed him to know before… Fuck, I loved the little rutting sounds he made when he was horny and eager. I couldn’t think, his hands were fisting in my shirt, pushing it up and I could feel him now, hard and bulging in his joggers, pushing into my thigh, impetuous and impatient. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could feel it in his own chest now that he had managed to pull me back to his lips, his tongue wet and blazing on my ear, the sensation causing momentary blindness.

Wait, just wait… I needed a moment to catch my breath, to regroup. We hadn’t even said hello. How had we gone straight from a quip about the door lock to… this. Oh God, how I’d missed this… NO! WAIT!

“Jesus fucking Christ. Armie. Fucking kiss me already,” he said hands firmly cupping my cheeks now and forcing me to look at him; his eyes, green like moss or young palm fronds, pleading, no not pleading, demanding for me to give in to whatever this was, mouth already open and waiting.

When I had imagined this moment - and I had imagined it often, usually as I lay alone in the guestroom bed after having had another argument with Liz because of my attitude, my moping or generally being unavailable emotionally - it didn’t happen like this. It wasn’t this rushed, this frenetic, sloppy almost in the way his tongue was everywhere in my mouth. 

He kicked off his shoes and then slipped out of his oversized hoodie in one fluid motion, throwing it to ground without care, his long body visible now, still narrow but wiry more than skinny, muscles more visible under taut skin, tensing deliciously as he groped and pulled at me. 

I was distracted momentarily by the hoodie on the floor, because this wasn’t like him. He was far from a neat freak, quite the opposite in fact, but it was a $1,000.00 Hermes hoodie and he was normally more careful with things of value. But he was kissing me again, hands tugging roughly at my own clothes to get them off and I forgot why I had hesitated.

He hadn’t been wearing a t-shirt underneath the sweater and having him half naked and in my arms again rocked my entire body with violent spasms of desire that made my knees weak. I had to hold onto the back of the couch for support, afraid we would both tumble to the ground if he kept pressing into me so intently.

He bit my bottom lip and I winced, sucking it into my mouth to soothe it when he released me, a faint metallic tinge tingling on my tongue telling me he had probably broken skin. I thought ‘wait’ again but I couldn’t articulate it, a groan escaping my throat instead when his hand slipped inside my pyjama pants and wrapped around my length, the familiarity of it lulling my concerns just long enough to for my brain to shut down and hand the reins over to my body.

He was sucking at the hollow of my throat hard enough to leave a mark, fingers of his free hand fisting hard in my hair making my scalp hurt. The mix of pleasure and pain was heady and I had to tighten my grip on the back of the couch to keep myself standing.

I wanted to believe that all his exigence was coming from a place of longing and interminable waiting but I couldn't help but feel as though there was muted aggression in his actions, an underlying antagonism lingering between us like an after taste. I ignored it. This is what I wanted, wasn’t it? And if he wanted it too, who was I to say we weren’t doing things in the right order or we weren't waiting an adequate amount of time? So I gave in. 100% all in, right? 

He walked me backwards clumsily to the front of the couch, hands on my hips, directing me with his pelvis as I tried to keep kissing him, back curved to reach his mouth, my hands holding onto his forearms for balance. 

He pushed me down when we got there and I fell hard into the cushions, a huff of air leaving me on impact. Not waiting for me to catch my breath, he bent at the waist and pulled forcibly at my pyjama bottoms making me raise my hips awkwardly so they could slide off. He took his off as unceremoniously, discarding them with no more care than the hoodie and then he was fully naked in my lap, straddling me, toes tucked under my thighs, knees spread wide and hips pushed forward so our cocks were touching. He curled his torso around me, arms around my shoulders, teeth and lips alternating on my ear, raising goosebumps all over.

He was grinding into me hard and I tried to slow him down with my hands on his hips but he wasn't having it. He moved my hands from his hips to his ass, wiggling into my palms until I squeezed, stretching his cheeks apart and then pushing them back together. He moaned into my mouth and resumed grinding, my lower belly blazing from the inside out, muscles clenching tightly. I would come just from this if he didn’t stop. 

He lifted up on his knees and reached between our bodies, gripping my erection to push it toward my thighs so that when he lowered back down, the head of my cock slicked with both of our precome was sliding across his perineum and peeking into the rounds of his ass.

I begged him to wait, closing my eyes to concentrate on what I needed to say, the feeling of my shaft slipping between his buttcheeks making my words sound like molasses as they exited my mouth. I told him we should go back to the house or if he didn’t want to, then I should because the guesthouse had been cleaned after he had left and I had gotten rid of any evidence of our love making; the memories too painful. But I knew there was a bottle of lube in the bedside tablet in the master.

He shook his head no and exaggerated the curve of his back and forth against my cock, pushing it further into his crack. I dug my nails into his ass cheeks and pushed them together tightly to increase friction just for a moment and then pulled them apart to stop it.

“I don’t want to hurt you, I should go get the lube.” I said more surely, and he grunted with exasperation. He sat back on my thighs, his weight pinning my entire length between my legs and his body uncomfortably and he presented me with an upturned open palm, the tips of his fingers at the level of my lips. I looked at him confused. I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do. 

“Spit!” he ordered sternly. My look of surprise seemed to irk him and he raised expectant eyebrows in my direction. When I didn’t respond, too shocked to do so because I didn’t know this person - this was very much unlike him - he rolled his eyes and brought his fingers up close to his lips. I watched as his jaw moved, cheeks sucking in as he pooled saliva into the front of his mouth. When he had enough he parted his lips and made a point of showing me the thick foamy blob bubbling around his lips and on his tongue before he let it ooze onto his fingers, spitting for good measure to make sure he got it all.

He raised to his knees again, his body just inches from my face and he looked down at me as he snaked a hand behind his back and into his crack, spreading it around before pushing a finger inside himself. He gasped quietly, his face scrunched into a wince at what was likely a mixture of pleasure and discomfort. I felt conflicted by this, weirdly jealous even, because I wanted to be the one to do that. I enjoyed doing it and I took pride in doing a good job at opening him up to accomodate my size. But watching him getting himself ready for me was also very much a turn on.

He didn’t spend too much time on it, removing his fingers from his ass quickly to take hold of my erection, guiding it to his damp opening. I knew spit wasn’t going to cut it, he probably did too. This was going to hurt and he didn’t seem to care, lowering himself down without hesitation.

As soon as the tip of my cock breached his hole, his eyes slipped shut and he bit into his bottom lip to steel himself against the pain. It took less than three seconds for him to slide down my shaft and as his ass kissed the top of my thighs he grunted, upper lip curled, nose wrinkled and brow furrowed. He took a moment to breathe, inhaling deeply through his nose and out audibly through his mouth and once settled, he opened his eyes. 

He slid his hands over my chest, fingers grazing through my chest hair on the way to wrapping his arms around my shoulders. His fingers dug into my shoulder blades as he moved, the sensation of his body tightening around my cock flooding all remnants of reason.

I moved my hands from his hips back to his asscheeks and I rubbed my palms into his flesh. He grunted softly and pulled himself up a few inches before sinking back down, rolling his hips in a forward arch. There was no hesitancy or trial and error to find the right angle so that the tip of my cock grazed over his swollen prostate, years of practice and muscle memory making it easy and he keened, the sound coming from the back of his throat. 

It was obvious that he had a clear idea of what he wanted and how to go about getting it and all I could do was sit back and watch... And feel. Our eyes connected for a moment, his dark and blazing, and in them I could see something more than just desire. Anger maybe? Resentment? I couldn’t identify it but it was disconcerting. Wait, I wanted to say once more but before I could he closed his eyes and started riding my cock in earnest. 

A low, gravely moan bubbled up in my throat and escaped through parted lips as he tightened his muscles against the crown of my cock before sliding down its length slowly, the pressure and grip of his body on me sending me into a state of euphoria. This was something he had practiced doing when we were together and it sent my heart racing that he would not only remember that I loved it but want to make me feel good by doing it.

I dug my fingers into his ass, mimicking the pressure around my cock and he leaned in pressing his cheek against mine, soft little moans hitting the shell of my ear.

“Don’t stop,” he requested when I relaxed my hands to not hinder the rapidly increasing movement of his hips, his voice strangled but licentious. I did as I was told, spreading his asscheeks and squeezing them gently in my palms. “No, harder. Harder,” he grunted, demanding now. He wanted it to hurt.

His hands slipped to the back of my neck, fingers digging into my skin, nails leaving little burning indents and I could feel the flesh around them swell. I dug my own fingers into his ass again and squeezed even harder in response. It was then that I felt his teeth sink into the junction between my shoulder and the slope of my neck and I knew immediately I wasn’t going to walk away from this without the evidence that he had made me his, flagrantly exposed for everyone to see. 

I hissed when he loosened his jaw, the release of pressure allowing blood flow back into my veins causing more pain than the bite itself and I felt him smile against my skin. 

“Oh, fuck, yes,” he whispered, eyes finding mine for a brief moment before he closed them, head falling backward as the rhythm of his pelvis fevered. I watched him in awe, face slack with pleasure, flushed and damp with sweat, chestnut curls now long almost to his neck, matting against his skin. He had become even more beautiful than he had been when we’d met.

As he held onto my neck with his left hand for leverage, he brought his right arm between our bodies and wrapped his long fingers around his shaft. He groaned, his thighs quivering with the effort of pushing himself up and down in a rhythmic race against his hand as he stroked himself closer to orgasm.

My stomach tightened, a fiery ball growing in the pit of it. I could feel my balls throbbing, drawing up tight against my body and I knew I was close and I couldn’t fight it.

“Armie,” he breathed, his voice rough but steady, demanding. I looked up at him and the glint in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. What was that? Mischievousness maybe? But if so, why did it feel somewhat malicious. I wanted to say something or ask him to talk to me because I was getting anxious but before I could, his ass squeezed down unbearably tight around the base of my cock and I was coming.

My back arched and my fingers tightened even more on his ass. He groaned, clearly in pain but not stopping. I could feel my come coat his insides and fill him up and all the feelings I had been compartmentalizing away since he’d left me came to flood my heart like a tsunami and I almost screamed out that I loved him, that I had always loved him and would always love him. I’m not sure how I managed to contain it. 

Instead I shuddered through the last aftershocks and I watched him chase his own orgasm. His hand around his cock was speeding up now, twisting at the tip, his thumb slipping into his wet slit. He gasped, pressed the tip of his erection against my stomach and rolled his hips forward as the first string of pearly white come streaked across my skin. He moaned through his orgasm, jerking his cock and tightening his fingers around the tip until, eventually, the last drops dribbled down over his hand. He exhaled shakily and flopped off of my lap, dropping to the couch next to me, breathing heavily. 

Eventually his breath slowed and my heart regained a normal pace. Minutes passed, 5, 10… but it felt like hours. I could feel the tension in the air around us. Everything hot had turned cold. Especially Timmy. We were touching but he felt far away. I grazed a hand over the inside of his thigh, fingertips drawing intricate spirals from his knee to mid thigh and back again and although I could feel the little bumps of gooseflesh on his skin he remained passive. He wasn’t looking at me, his head was turned to the side completely but I could tell by the way his jaw was moving that he was gnawing at his bottom lip.

I squeezed his knee and nudged him with my shoulder playfully, his only response a quick exhale through his nose and a half closed-mouth smile that was probably meant to be a chuckle but wasn’t.

“Everything ok?” I asked, dreading the answer, knowing things were obviously not. This wasn't what the aftermath of our reunion was supposed to be like. It certainly shouldn't feel so heavy, so crushing yet wholly underwhelming, should it? 

“I need to clean up,” he said eventually, getting up from the couch and heading to the bathroom. 

I watched him walk away, bruises already starting to appear in the form of my fingers on the pale skin of his ass, already dark shadows that would turn black and blue tonight or tomorrow. There had been instances in the past when we had played a little rough and times where he liked the idea of walking around with a mark I'd left there hidden from view; but this was something else. Between the bruises and the unprepared entry he was going to hurt tomorrow anytime he sat down. Likely anytime he moved with even a mild level of exertion. I couldn't help but think that that had been what he wanted. 

I grabbed my shirt off the floor and cleaned my stomach with it, eyeing my pyjama pants and debated whether or not I should get dressed, feeling vulnerable and exposed. As long minutes ticked by, feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness added themselves to the mix. Compelled to protect my physical liability if I couldn’t protect my emotional exposure, I hastily pulled them up and began to pace the room, unable to sit still the longer he stayed hidden away.

Eventually I heard the bathroom door open and he emerged, looking uncomfortable, awkwardly carrying himself in such a way that he could somewhat protect his nudity without being too obvious. I smiled at him, hoping it looked less desperate and pleading than it felt and he smiled back self-consciously. He located his clothes and got dressed in silence as I watched, feeling helpless and fighting increasing dread.

He disappeared behind the couch momentarily when he bent down to find a lost shoe and then he quickly slipped it on, wincing as he lifted his knee to lace it. He was already sore.

“I have to go.” he said and immediately my mind exploded with panic. 

I heard myself say What? And ask Why? I don’t understand how I was able to speak without air in my lungs and my heart having completely seized. He couldn’t look at me. He was fumbling with his cellphone, swiping quickly at the screen, concentrating on whatever he was trying to find or do, choosing to ignore my petition for answers. 

I called his name softly and he looked up sideways for barely more than a second before returning his attention to the screen in his hand. I said it more loudly the second time, my anguish translating into anger as it usually did and I caught myself, inhaling deeply before speaking again, forcing my tone to soften and the shaking in my limbs to steady. When he looked up, eyebrows raised, he had a steely look in his eyes. I rambled off a series of questions as he stared, unphased. Was it something I said? Did I do something wrong? Did I hurt him badly? I hadn’t meant to. Had I misread the queues? I thought he wanted it to hurt and I was so sorry if that wasn’t the case. The way he was looking at me then was almost as if he felt sorry for me and it shut me up.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. It wasn’t meant to be reassuring. “And you did hurt me but it’s ok, I did want you to.”

I asked why and he shrugged dejectedly; his face, which had always been a mirror into his mind, was abnormally passive and blank. I stepped forward a few feet in an attempt to close the divide I could feel growing between us but he stepped backward to maintain it. The chasm grewing perceptibly.

I asked again and my voice cracked with emotion. He sighed this time and shoved his hands into the pockets of his joggers. Another shrug with his eyes on the floor. All that was missing was a dusty kick at an invisible rock and the picture was complete. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. 

“Please talk to me.” I begged. I took another step and he backed up again. If he kept going he’d be pinned against the wetbar. I almost forced this to happen, thinking if I could corner him between the bar and my body he’d have no choice but look at me and talk to me. But I stopped myself. That was the old me.

“I shouldn’t have come.” He said, and immediately I felt a wave of pure pain wash over me. ‘’I should have said goodbye yesterday and let it be that.” 

‘’Why did you?’’ all the fight in me had gone. I was suddenly very tired again.

“Not sure!’’ he said, shrugging again, biting the inside of his lip as he pursed. He was trying to stay neutral but his nostrils were flared and I could see that a slow seethe was building. ‘’When Elizabeth asked me to check up on you I thought it would be fine, you know? I’d stop by, make sure you were in one piece, report back and get on with my life. I mean I owed her at least that even if it meant having to see you again. The thing is I wasn’t even nervous about it. I was so sure I was over it. But then there you were… and I was hugging you… and you smelled so good… I just couldn’t think. And then I got home and all I could do was think. Think about being with you, kissing you again, because when you kiss me it’s like everything around me evaporates and I become this completely different person that belongs only to you and I miss that feeling Armie. I miss being yours. But being yours has always implied having to lose myself completely and I hate you for that. I hate that to be yours I had to stop being me. But beyond that, I hate that you didn’t love either of us enough to put a stop to it.’’

Things were different now, I wanted to say. I’d changed, I was a different person. And that was a good thing. I'd told Liz, I’d told my family. This time I was the one changing to be the person he deserved. And I would never ask him to hide again. We could be happy.

“It’s too late now,” he continued with a sigh. “I’m already happy. Listen, I know this makes me the asshole and I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I just needed to get you out of my system. I needed to make sure I was over you.”

“And are you? Over me?” Every cell in my body burned with hope that he would say no, when I could already tell the answer was probably yes.

“I don’t know.” he said, shaking his head and raising his shoulders with his arms at hip level spread wide, the gesture a perfect representation of his words. 

Suddenly I could see him all those years ago, Timmy/Elio dressed in the oversized blue shirt that had been mine/Oliver’s, skipping out of the villa in Crema and suddenly being faced with having to tell Marzia that she was in fact not his girl. He had the same look on his face now. The same discomfort, that same embarrassment. The same pained expression at knowing that what he was saying was hurtful but needed to be said nonetheless.

“I love you.” I said because I had nothing else to lose and I need him to know that I had and would always.

He smiled that closed mouth half smile again as he looked at the floor. Another long silence stretched between us, furthering the chasm. I was angry now. Anger being an easier emotion to feel than loss and heartbreak. I heard his phone vibrate in his hand and he looked at it, tapped something and then shoved it in his pocket.

“My Uber’s here, I have to go. Are you going to be ok?” he asked me and the question made me laugh.

“You asked me that yesterday and I’m not sure why ‘cause it’s not like you give a shit.” I sounded petulant but I didn’t care.

“I promised Liz.” he stated, lips twitching into the half smile again and it was starting to weigh on me like judgment and pity.

“If she asks you can just say yes and the truth will be our little secret.” I saw a flicker of pain flash in his eyes and I was glad. I wanted him to hurt too. It made it less unbearable if both of us were hurting.

“What’s one more secret and lie in the grand scheme of things, right?” He said with a scoff. The sarcasm wasn’t lost on me and my comfort at his upsetness was quickly replaced by guilt. But I said nothing.

He paused for a moment, looking at me, lip tucked between his teeth and with a sigh he said: “Bye, Armie.” and walked out of the guest house.

I didn’t follow him. I couldn’t move. I shifted my eyes toward the clock and noticed it wasn’t even lunchtime. I had been up for barely an hour and I felt like a lifetime had gone by while we hid away behind these walls.I couldn’t even process what had just happened. It couldn’t be real. This was just a bad dream; my mind's way of sorting through all the crap I had been feeling for years. I waited for my body to catch up to my brain and wake up but nothing happened. 

Eventually I made my way to the couch and sat where we had just fucked, the smell of it still lingering in the air as I let the pain and sorrow envelop me, dragging me under the surface to where I couldn’t breathe and salt stung my eyes.

My heart cramped against the agony of the loss I felt. I wanted my mother to tell me it was going to be ok. I wanted Liz to help me make it happen. But most of all, I wanted Timmy to tell me he loved me. All things that were no longer possible because of mistakes I’d made throughout my life and now had to own up to. Even with regard to my mother. Because if I had been honest with her long ago, maybe she would have learned to accept it. Or not but I would have learned how to live without her sooner. 

I grabbed the throw from the back of the couch and lay down, closing my eyes as I counted each breath the way Liz had shown me once when she had tried to get me into Yoga. I don’t know how successful it was at clearing my mind but at least I no longer felt as though I was drowning; I was exhausted though. 

I’m going to lay here until I fell asleep again I thought. Maybe when I wake up, I’ll be able to start thinking about how to build a new life without the people I loved in it… or maybe not. If I’m lucky, maybe I just won’t wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know... I'm sorry. I'll fix it in part three. I promise. :(


	3. Exorcism - Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Timmy got a call from Liz asking him to go and check on Armie after his confessions to his mother, he hadn't excepted things to unfold so dramatically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to apologize in advance. Turns out I wasn't able to get this resolved in part 3. So there will be a part 4. What began initially as a one shot seems to have become somewhat of a monster. When I started writing from Timmy's POV in part 3, it was to give a little perspective into what had lead Timmy to leave Armie at the end of part 2. I realized as I was writing it that Timmy had too much emotional baggage to resolve this quickly. it didn't feel comfortable to skim over these events. So please bare that in mind as you read this.

(Timmy POV)

I felt numb. Physically I was sore, my ass bouncing against the backseat of the Uber a constant reminder of what I had just done; but emotionally I felt nothing. I was conscious that I had just left Armie sinking in an ocean of pain. I had seen it in his face, in the way he was wincing against the agony of my callousness as though I was inflicting bodily harm but I couldn’t bring myself to care. 

I was reminded of the speech, delivered so eloquently by Michael Stulbarg in which Professor Pearlman says to Elio ‘To Feel nothing, so as not to feel anything... What a waste’.

I knew I was wasting the opportunity for catharsis and true forward momentum but even that didn’t phase me. It’s not that I didn’t want to feel, it’s that I couldn't. I wanted to scream because of the anger I deserved to feel and I wanted to cry because of the loss that should be crushing me but all I could muster in the face of the void of emotion was mild amusement at my own cold-bloodedness. 

The Uber driver was chatting away and while I normally engaged easily in conversation I found myself answering mechanically, responding with well rehearsed platitudes worthy of any press junket; the questions were always the same whether they came from journalists or strangers who wanted to get to know me. 

I was glad to finally reach the little apartment I had been renting since my arrival in L.A. I thanked the driver and made my way inside, surprised to find Eiza still there. She was sitting cross legged on the couch, watching a movie. We exchanged reciprocal hey’s and I plopped down next to her without thinking, realizing before I hit the cushions that it was going to hurt and I clenched my body reactively which only made it worse.

My discomfort must have been visible because she asked if I was ok and I nodded; I didn’t mind the pain, in fact I wanted to feel it so I could at least feel something. I shifted around to find a comfortable position, finally opting to lay on my side with my head in her lap and she began to play in my hair, long nails scratching against my skull. I sighed, enjoying the comfort of it. 

When I’d left Armie’s the night before, I had lied when I had told him that I needed to get back because she was waiting for me. I had just needed an excuse to leave because I knew if I stayed any longer I would cave and end up in his bed. I had missed him so much in the year since I’d left that it hurt physically to be so close to him and not be able to touch him. It was in that moment that I realized that it was simply distance that had lulled me into a false sense of thinking I was over him. I wasn’t in fact. That was made blatantly obvious by the yearning I felt both in my belly and in my chest. So I’d made an excuse to leave when he’d asked me to stay.

I had called Eiza from the Uber, asking her if she wanted to hang out and I guess she could tell by the tone in my voice that I needed a friend, because she canceled her plans and was waiting for me when I got there. We talked for a long time and once I got started, I couldn’t stop until I had told her the whole story, from the moment he had walked in on my piano lesson in Italy to the moment the phone rang and I saw it was Elizabeth calling. 

She had listened to me in relative silence and once I was done, she thanked me for being honest with her and asked what I was planning on doing. Nothing, I’d answered. I had done what Elizabeth had asked; he seemed fine considering and that was it for me. I wasn’t planning on going back. Although I felt for him and I was happy that he was finally taking the steps to be true to himself, I didn’t want to be a part of that journey.

Things were different for me. I had never lied about who I was; until I had met him that is. Before Armie I had always been very open about my sexuality - at least in the sense that there had just never been any need to address it. I had dated both men and women in college and it had never been a big deal. I was attracted to who I was attracted to and it had less to do with body parts than it did with someone's personality and how we connected. Nobody knew this, because at the time, nobody knew who I was; so nobody cared. 

Then I met Armie and to protect him, I began to lie. It seemed like all we did was lie. Even to each other at times. We lied to Elizabeth, to our friends and our families, to journalists and our people. During promo for Call Me By Your Name, fans and reporters alike began commenting about our chemistry and about how genuine and real our attraction for each other seemed. Often Armie would joke that what had transpired on screen had also taken place off. 

‘’Hide in plain sight’’ he’d say when I asked why he said that if he didn’t want people to know about us. 

So to further the subterfuge I would coyly make a point of stating that not EVERYTHING had happened in the way that it had in the movie… which was the first lie. Because it very much had happened in that way. We had fallen in love in that villa, somewhere in Northern Italy, pretending it was 1983 and it had grown from there.

We had tried to go back to our regular lives after Crema. Elizabeth was pregnant with Ford and Harper was only two years old. Armie felt he owed it to them to at least try to be a good husband and father. I thought that this decision resided more in fear than the desire to try and save something already broken; but what did I know from the top of my barely twenty years of life experience. So despite being hurt, I Iied and said I understood. 

I tried to console myself by saying there was a prophetic syncopation in ending things this way. Oliver and Elio, Armie and Timothee… forever bonded by summer love but destined to be apart. I’d always been a romantic and there was beauty in such tragedy.

I had rehearsed losing him on the train platform in Bergamo where Elio hadn’t been ready to let Oliver go. And then again as I cried into the fireplace at the villa, thinking back on our summer romance and everything Armie/Oliver had meant to me. Yet when it came time for us to go our separate ways, all the rehearsing hadn’t prepared me for the feeling of being crushed under the weight of a longing I hadn’t anticipated and wasn’t equipped for. 

I returned to my life in New York and Armie went back to his family in L.A. We were good for a few weeks. Texting once or twice to say hi or to send each other a picture of something we thought would make the other laugh. But then a text here and there became a call every few days and quickly turned to facetime-ing daily.

It wasn’t long before platonic platitudes had become flirtatious frivolities and then one night as we exchanged our usual teasing banter, I watched mesmerized as Armie’s face turned lecherous and I knew immediately he was touching himself. The first time it happened I was too awestruck to follow suit. Instead I talked him through it, directing his actions and lending commentary to the exquisiteness of what I was witnessing. The following night I was all too eager to join in and this continued at every opportunity until we were finally able to see each other again in October of that year. I had returned home to New York after filming for LadyBird had wrapped and Armie was scheduled to do some Birth of a Nation promo in the city.

We had three days together that fall. To finally be able to touch each other again was electric and addictive in a way it hadn’t been in Crema. The emotional bond we had developed over only being able to speak because of the distance and the reality that separated us had forged the love we had seeded in Crema into something so strong even the diamond on his wife’s wedding ring wouldn't be able to destroy it. 

So unlike in Crema, I was unable to say goodbye this time. Because that goodbye had left wounds so deep that they still weren’t fully scared over. Which is why it had been so easy to reopen them to let him in. Even if I knew it was wrong, even if I understood that his situation hadn’t changed. I loved him and I couldn’t let go. Not again. So we went back to covert conversations and stolen face-time sessions.  
  
We had another brief reunion in January 2017 at the Sundance Film Festival where we premiered the movie and then In the spring of that year I moved to L.A. for a few months to begin production on Beautiful Boy. The studio had lined up an apartment for me but Armie had insisted that I stay in his guest house. I had reservations obviously. There was no longer any attempt to pretend like we weren’t having an affair and the idea of conducting this right under Elizabeth’s nose had left a bad taste in my mouth. But he convinced me that his proximity to the kids would allow him more time to be with me because otherwise he would always have to find excuses to come and visit me at my apartment; he was convinced that would raise more suspicion.

Within five minutes of him slinking away to the guesthouse after Elizabeth had gone to bed the first night I was there, the blinds were drawn and we were naked in each other's arms. The lies grew exponentially from there. The sneaking around became thrilling and intoxicating. The risk of getting caught, stealing away precious minutes to kiss or to fuck or simply whisper soft I love you’s while his wife had her back turned, became a game. 

There were many close calls. In moments of guilt and rational thinking I repeatedly said we should stop, that we were being cruel to her and to each other in engaging in something that couldn't ever be more than it was. But I never followed through. Because I loved him. And being loved by him was all-encompassing. 

Going back to New York was almost a relief when filming wrapped. I had hoped that the distance would allow me to clear my head and make the decision I knew I had to make but couldn’t, because I was too emotionally attached. But within a day of ignoring his texts and rejecting his calls, I missed him so fiercely it began to give me panic attacks. The only way to relieve this growing separation anxiety was to ignore the guilt and resume our affair. 

Eventually, after this had gone on for a few years, I was forced to confess to my mother. She had noticed a change in me that she couldn’t help but question. Of course she had known already - mother’s intuition she’d said. She listened and told me that she loved me but that she was disappointed in me for lying, for not being true to myself and for my part in the pain this would inevitably cause a wife and her children. But she had also said that if I needed to do this, she wouldn’t hold it against me. I had been very lucky in comparison to what Armie was now dealing with.

But regardless of how much I felt for him, I wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole again. When I had told him I was done a year ago, I had meant it. 

After my late night confessions, Eiza and I had fucked. It wasn’t anything mind blowing but it had served its purpose in releasing some tension and making me forget for at least half an hour that I had spent the afternoon with Armie and that since, all I could think about was the way it had felt to touch him again. She had fallen asleep before me, her butt pressed to my hip as she hugged my spare pillow to her chest, her feet tucked comfortably under my calf. It felt good to be with her. To have her there, not clinging to me but there if I needed to cling to her. 

However, once I was alone with my thoughts, they started to ramble. All I could think about were his hands, his arms, the way his upper lip curled to expose sharp incisors when he smiled and how good it had felt to have those little points dig into the inside of my thigh. If I closed my eyes I could hear his voice telling me to take my clothes off, or asking me if it felt good to have his cock in my ass and when I called out his name as I moaned, his answer always being ‘I love you.’. My lips tingled with the need to have him kiss me, because when he did it felt like I was being cherished and owned and worshiped all at the same time.

I barely slept. I dozed periodically and would wake up with a start, my cock aching with a need for him so palpable it hurt if the sheets grazed it. By the time morning came along I think I had started to go a little crazy. I’m not sure how I came to the decision that I should go back but by 8 a.m. I was showered and dressed and I was waking Eiza up to let her know that I was heading out and I didn’t know when I'd be back. She smiled, eyes still closed.

“Are you going to see him?” she asked and it sounded rhetorical but I answered affirmatively anyway. “Should I wait for you?” she followed. I shrugged and said I didn’t know. She nodded and squeezed my pillow to her chest, never having opened her eyes, settling in to go back to sleep. I leaned down and kissed her on the lips, silently begging her to kiss me back, thinking that if she did, then maybe my desire for her would be enough to stop me from going to Armie’s. But she didn’t. Instead, she sigh softly into my mouth and rolled over.

I don’t know what I was thinking heading over there. It had nothing to do with logic. By the time I was in the Uber I was so focused on getting to him I couldn’t think of anything else. I had no concrete plan regarding what I would do when I got there, I just needed to get there.

I let myself in and disarmed the alarm as I had done the day before, thinking once I was already inside that maybe I should have texted him to let him know that I’d be there when he woke up. I guess I could have done it then, but didn’t. Hi keys and his wallet were still on the kitchen island where I had seen them yesterday. Good. The wave of excitement I felt at realizing he was still there surprised me. My heart was racing and my hands felt twitchy as though electric current was coursing in my finger tips.

Should I wake him? Should I make breakfast and then wake him? That would be weird. I fought the urge to go looking for him, thinking it would give the wrong signals if I were to walk into his room and… and what exactly? 

I wondered if he still slept naked and suddenly I missed the feeling of his large warm body curling around me as he pulled me close, a long arm wrapped around my waist, his hand tucking easily between my hip and the mattress so I was essentially locked into place and unable to get free unless he allowed it. 

Panic began to flutter in my chest at the memory of it and I forced myself to take a deep breath to ward it off. The anxiety didn’t come from a place of feeling trapped but rather because I missed the safety and protectiveness of it. Because in those moments, the world around me had disappeared and all that remained was his heartbeat steadying mine. 

Resentment replaced panic and for a moment I allowed it to clear my head a little as I reminded myself that he had been the main cause of the panic attacks I had developed after Crema and I now realized how toxic it was that the person I looked too for comfort in those moments was actually the person who was harming me. 

Harm might be a bit of a dramatic word. It implied malice and forethought and I knew that there had been none of that. It was self-protection in the face of fear of discovery and the loss that would cause. But the end result had been the same. I was 20 years old when this started. Barely more than a kid. The age difference between him and I was larger than that of Elio and Oliver. He was the adult, the one with experience with relationships. He should have known better. He should have been more careful with me. He certainly shouldn’t have had to protect me from himself. The confusion that had caused still echoed in my relationships to this day, be they romantic or platonic.

Stop! I chastised myself. I had worked passed all that in the year since I’d left him, hadn’t I? I forced the resentment down into my stomach and busied myself aimlessly, making a pot of coffee and cleaning up the dishes he had left in the living room, smiling despite myself at the empty bag of BBQ he had ordered from his favorite place. I recognized the containers and chuckled realizing he had eaten nothing but meat and a very small container of potato salad. 

I made an effort to be quiet, torn between wanting him to wake up and not wanting him too, because how would I explain my presence when I couldn’t even explain it to myself. I wanted to see him. But then what? To say what? To do what? Unease and self-doubt began to creep into my chest. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t be here, I told myself. I was about to leave when I heard the lock click and the front door opened. Too late, I sighed. 

“Good morning Mr. Timmy.” Julia the housekeeper beamed from the entryway upon seeing me, her hands full of grocery bags. She didn’t seem surprised that I was there. I rushed to help her and brought the bags into the kitchen, setting them down onto the counter before hugging her. She patted my cheek and told me she was happy to see me again and I told her that Armie was sleeping so she would know to be quiet.

“I couldn’t remember what kind of milk you take in your coffee so I bought regular and almond I hope that ‘s ok?” she asked and the question surprised me. Elizabeth had asked her to stock the fridge and mentioned I’d probably be here with Armie, she had informed me when I asked how she knew I’d be here.

I couldn’t contain a disdainful chuckle at that. Was I that predictable? Did Liz think I had so little self restraint that she would assume I would have jumped at the possibility of spending the night? I had more self-respect than that. 

‘Then why are you here?’ my inner voice asked me, suddenly sounding suspiciously like Liz and I shushed it. It wasn’t like that. I just needed to see him. I needed to get him out of my head. ‘How is seeing him going to do that?’ it asked contemptibly. I was just like when you have a song stuck in your head, I tried to convince it, myself. To get it out, you have to listen to it. I just needed to see him so I could get him out of my system. System? Head. I meant head.

My belly was in knots and I no longer felt as though I could stomach a cup of coffee. I asked Julia to tell Armie I was here and that I'd be waiting for him in the guest house when he woke up. 

Walking into the space felt like returning to the scene of the crime. It looked the same as I remembered although it had lost it’s lived in feeling from when I had stayed here and it had been Armie and I’s sanctuary. 

The guest house was a small cottage-like building off of the pool with one bedroom, a livingroom and a kitchenette. I wanted to remember it fondly, because we had had so many good times here and not just because this is where we snuck away to fuck but also because in this space we had been free to just be, with no fear and very little risk. But these rooms also held the memory that this is all we had. Because only in these walls could I truly be his. 

Otherwise it had all been clandestine meetings, covert glances and hidden touches; and yes there had been some excitement to it all but mostly there had been pain and heartache.   
Love wasn’t supposed to hurt, despite everything I had been taught in movies and in books.  
It had taken a long time for me to realize that tragedy didn’t equate romance as I had once thought. It had taken me even longer to realize love wasn’t enough. So why was I here? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

He burst into the guesthouse and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me. My heart mirrored his expression. Shocked and thrilled. There was a moment where we just stared and I could have stopped what happened next. It was brief. But it was there and I could have. But I didn’t. Because if I didn’t know anything else, I knew that I wanted him. 

“You really have to reprogram that lock.” I said smirking, unable to help myself. Because he looked so awed at my presence and it was beautiful. And then I was almost off my feet and in his arms. 

Immediately my face was in his neck and my nose was buried behind his jaw, the scruff of a few days worth of bread scratching my skin and I melted. I had missed the roughness of it, the way it burned like fine grained sandpaper and left invisible scratches that I could still feel after he had long since pulled away. It didn’t take long for me to feel his cock against my belly, already getting hard and need took over reason completely. It was exhilarating to see that I still had this effect on him and I couldn’t help but press into him, my arms tightening around his shoulders as I breathed him in, my own erection beginning to stir.

“Wait. Please wait.” he whispered, already out of breath and he tried to push me away but I wasn’t having it. I clung thigher, grinding against his thigh as he tried to turn away because now that I had him in my arms I couldn’t let him go, my body needing the contact the way it needed air. When he kept insisting I grunted and grabbed his face in my palms forcing him to look at me.

“Jesus fucking Christ. Armie. Fucking kiss me already,” I demanded trying to get him to focus. I ended up being the one who kissed him. It was rushed and frenetic; I felt as though I had been starved for a year and was finally able to get some nourishment. Despite this he was hesitant and this annoyed me. I knew he wanted me. His body didn’t lie. He was rock hard and yet he kept trying to stop this from happening. Why? He had never pushed me away. Not once. Why now?

I kicked off my shoes and practically ripped off my hoodie, pleased at the initial reaction my naked upper body had gotten. He was definitely interested. Good. I kissed him again as I tugged at his clothing, his t-shirt coming off easily but I could tell he was distracted, his eyes darting to my discarded sweater. In frustration I bit his bottom lip, harder than I had meant to, a little thrill going through me as he sucked it into his mouth to sooth it when I released him. The pain this had caused him excited me in a way that stirred emotions I had been ignoring for a long time, none of them particularly warm and fuzzy.

My mouth found the hollow of his throat and I wanted to mark it the way he used to mark me; so he would be reminded of what we’d done and long for me tomorrow the way I had longed for him for weeks after I had left, bruises turning yellow with time, a painful reminder of what I was giving up. He moaned and he grunted, the reverberations tickling my lips. He liked it more than it hurt so I sucked a little harder, his fingers digging into my forearms telling me the pain was finally present enough to be considered.

I had managed to keep him focused until we were both naked and I was straddling him on the couch, grinding into him mercilessly, my body curled around his, my mouth teasing his earlobe, taking great pleasure in the goosebumps this caused. My cock felt angry almost it was so hard, leaking onto his, precome slicking both our shafts as they rubbed together painfully. As good as it felt, it wasn’t enough. I wanted him inside me. I needed to feel him, muscle memory begging for the stretch and the fullness I had deprived myself of for over a year.

‘How quickly you allow yourself to get lost again.’ my inner voice mocked and I swallowed back embarrassment and shame, anger at myself percolating in my chest. 

Defiantly, I lifted up onto my knees and reached between our bodies, grabbing Armie’s erection and pushing it down so it slid between my ass cheeks. When I lowered myself the tip of it easily reached my hole and rubbed against it as I rocked my hips forward. His hands cupped my ass, palms and splayed fingers easily covering each cheek as he squeezed them together to increase friction. I arched back and forth raising up an inch in the forward stroke to try and get the head of his cock to push into me a little but then his hands were gone from my ass and he pushed me back begging me to wait again. 

He wanted to slow down, to go back to the house so we’d be more comfortable, so he could get lube to make it easier for me.

“I don’t want to hurt you.” he said and I would have found this endearing if it wasn’t annoying me so damned much. Who was he to decide now what hurt me and what didn’t?

‘Isn’t he sweet.’ my inner voice cackled. ‘Like you aren’t already damaged beyond repair.’ 

‘SHUT UP.’ I silently yelled at them both, almost paralysed with contempt which I countered by exaggerating the motion of my hips, his hands finding my ass again gripping tightly. 

“Spit!” I ordered sternly, bringing my hand up to his mouth. The shocked look on his face was both amusing and irksome. When had he become so prim? Fine! If he wasn’t going to do it, then I would. Because I needed him inside me. My belly ached for it.

I made a point of showing him the thick foamy blob of saliva I had produced, letting it bubble around my lips and my tongue before I let it ooze onto my fingers. I spit vulgarly for show, pleased at the look that merited me. He seemed conflicted between desire and distaste and I couldn’t explain why but I was taking pleasure in the fact that he was bothered by my crassness. 

Keeping my eyes on him, I snaked a hand behind my back and rubbed the slightly viscous liquid into my crack, wincing mildly as I quickly pushed a finger and then two past tight muscles all the way in to make sure to get as much of the wetness inside me as I could. I fingered myself a few times, enjoying the discomfort, anticipating with relish the burn his cock would cause. Impatient, I removed my fingers and with the same hand grabbed his cock and angled it so the head of it was pressed to my damp opening. 

He looked incredulous and this spurred my hubris. I allowed my weight to pull me down a few inches and the head of his cock breached the first ring of muscle and then it was swallowed up inside me. I had anticipated the pain and yet it surprised me. I took a moment to steady myself, giving the searing sensation time to abade and the ache to settle in, committing the sensation to memory and then I allowed gravity to do its thing as I slid all the way down until my ass was kissing the top of his thighs.

He was even larger than I remembered and it hurt; and I fucking loved it. I wanted to feel the pain, to feel him completely wrecking me inside and out. I don’t really know why but I craved it voraciously. I think I wanted him to feel bad. To know that he had hurt me and that he was hurting me still. Our eyes connected and I could tell by the look on his face he was feeling uneasy and I liked that too. He looked so beautiful with a little agony in his gaze. Maybe I was trying to punish him for hurting me, for letting me go, for being here now. 

I felt pressure from his hands on my hips and I knew he wasn't trying to get me to move but rather stop. The beginnings of the word ‘wait’ was forming on his lips and this angered me. What was his fucking problem? I blocked him out by closing my eyes and focused on the feeling of being stretched out around him as I began to ride his cock with fervor. It didn’t take long for precome to mingle with the spit I had inserted previously and this eased the burn. His grip on my hips changed from a push to pull and I smiled slyly.

I didn’t want to moan but I couldn’t help myself. It felt too good to have him inside me again. I was adapting quickly to the size of him and the discomfort was dissipating rapidly. I longed for the pain before it was even gone. I took his hands from my hips and placed them on my ass again, wiggling my cheeks into his palms, the familiar action signalling him to dig his fingers into soft flesh which he did reflexively. He squeezed hard, pulling my ass wide, the muscles stretching even more as he did so and then relaxed his hold.

“Don’t stop,” I almost begged but caught myself before I did and hardened my voice to make the request. “Harder,” I commanded, pressing my cheek against his, the roughness of his facial hair irritating the thin skin over my cheekbone and I hoped it would leave a trace.

I knew exactly how to move to make sure each stroke hit my prostate and I groaned into his ear each time the back of my thighs slapped the top of his, the mix of pleasure and pain sending me into some sort of trance. He relaxed his hands again and I bit him. Hard! Right at the junction of his shoulder and the slope of his neck and immediately his hands fisting into my flesh roughly. It knocked the wind out of me momentarily and I had to release him to breathe. He hissed when my teeth pulled away from his skin and I couldn’t help but smile at the pain I had inflicted, admiring the mark I had inflicted, each tooth perfectly defined and violet in color. We were far from even but it was a start.

My erection was starting to throb and to appease it I wrapped my hand around it and began to stroke it deliberately. I matched the rhythm of my hand to the up and down of my body and the completeness of it rocked me with shivers and pre-orgasmic spasms. God I had missed this. I had missed his cock and his body and his hand and his smell and most of all I had missed him. Suddenly the pain in my chest far exceeded the pain in and around my ass and I cursed at myself. 

In an effort to quell this unwelcome feeling I doubled my efforts around his cock, my thighs quivering with exertion, muscles there burning as well and I focused on the only thing I wanted in the immediate which was Armie’s orgasm. I needed him to come. I wanted to feel the heat of it explode inside me and I wanted to revel in the knowledge that I had made it happen.

“Armie,” I breathed, my voice rough but steady, demanding and when he looked up at me I tightened the muscles of my ass around his cock and rocked my pelvis back and forth quickly. I didn’t have to tell him to come for me that he erupted, his back arching and his fingers tightening even more on my ass. I groaned again, both from the pain and from the gloriousness of how it felt to have his come coat my insides.

I thought he had been about to say something but I guess he thought better of it or simply couldn’t speak because he just leaned back and watched me chase my own orgasm as he shuddered through the aftershocks of his.

My need to come was suddenly very overwhelming. I kept him inside me despite knowing he was probably oversensitive but I didn’t care. He was still pretty hard and I wanted to feel my ass clench around him when my release finally happened. I speed up the motion of my hand, twisting at the tip, my thumb slipping into its wet slit. As soon as I felt my balls draw up I pressed the tip of the erection against his stomach and rolled my hips forward painting his golden skin in pearly white streaks. The force with which I came broke the trance and left me stunned and breathless. I felt shaky and almost disoriented as I flopped off of his lap and dropped to the couch next to him, suddenly overheated and chilled at the same time. 

Long minutes of heavy silence snailed by as a growing sense of regret and dread expanded through my chest making it even harder to breathe. What the fuck had I just done? 

Armie was gently grazing the inside of my thigh with his fingers, the touch almost loving yet it burned like acid. I wanted him to stop but I didn’t know how to say it without hurting his feelings.

‘Now you care about his feelings?’ my inner voice chided and I winced against the aggression of it. Because I did even if I didn’t want to.

Armie squeezed my knee and nudged me with his shoulder in a failed attempt at playfulness to which I responded with an equally failed attempt at a chuckle, the sound catching in my throat and tasting bitter.

I sat motionless, trying to figure out what to do or what to say, the silence between Armie and I so loud I couldn’t hear myself think. What now? I asked myself and this time my inner voice was stubbornly silent. 

“Everything ok?” he asked, the trepidation in his voice palpable. 

It made me feel small and predatory all at once. He wasn’t asking me if I was ok he was asking if ‘we’ were and we weren’t. He wanted this to mean something and it didn’t. And I knew that. But I did it anyway. Because I wanted to get him out of my head. Because I needed him out of my system.

‘You wanted him out of your system?’ my inner voice mocked sarcastically. ‘There are a millions tiny Armie’s leaking out of your system as we speak you realize. How'd that palate cleansing sex work out for you, Assohole?’

I could suddenly feel his thick ropy stickiness seep slowly out of my ass and it made me feel dirty and violated which made no sense; because wasn't I the aggressor in this scenario?

“I need to clean up,” I said and got up, relieved that we were no longer touching. I didn’t turn back to look at him as I made my way to the bathroom, controlling my urge to run, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible because the weight of what had just occurred was making itself felt. 

I closed the door behind myself and the panic receded slightly. I started the shower but quickly realized there were no towels on the rack so I turned it off. I grabbed the hand towel from its hook and ran it under scalding water to get it wet. I got closer to the full length mirror that hung on the door so I could see what I was doing and was stunned to see dark shadows already forming on the soft skin of my ass where his fingers had dug hard into my flesh at my insistence.

I grazed a delicate hand over the forming bruises and winced at how tender they were already. Trying not to grimace I pulled my right cheek away from the left to expose the rawness between them and I gingerly swiped the wet towel over my swollen and distended entrance. My eyes watered as the heat of it burned and the roughness of the terrycloth chaffed already inflamed skin. The pain steadied me. It allowed me to breathe. 

I wiped carefully across the entire length of my crack and over my perineum, cleaning as much of him off of me as I could and then I rinsed the hand towel and repeated the process another two times for good measure. Once I was satisfied that I had cleaned it all out I rinsed the towel one last time and cleaned my front as well, fighting the urge to scrub my entire body with it. I would have to wait to get home to shower for that

What now? I asked again in the mirror when I was done and waited for an answer that didn’t come.

I procrastinated a long time in the small bathroom, standing around stupidly, naked because I hadn’t had the common sense to grab my clothes before going in there, too eager to get away from Armie to think about having to walk back out there completely exposed. I felt very vulnerable and insecure at the moment and I fought against the feeling. Ten minutes ago I was riding the man like I owned him and now I was worried he would judge me for… for what exactly? No, I wasn’t worried he would judge me. I was worried he wouldn’t. That would be worse. 

As much as earlier that morning I could think of nothing other than getting to Armie, now I could think of nothing other than getting the fuck out of there. I took a deep breath and resolved to not look at him if possible. To just get dressed and then figure out what my options were to make a quick exit.

What followed was a blur. I think I deliberately blocked most of it out as it was happening. I remember saying “I have to go.” and the look of panic on his face washed over me like ice.

I said things like “You didn’t do anything wrong” and “you did hurt me but it’s ok, I wanted you to.” I knew it pained him deeply when I told him I shouldn’t have come and that I should have said goodbye the night before and let it be that. He asked why I had come then and I was honest when I said I didn’t know; because earlier that morning it had been true. 

He asked why I had come and this opened a floodgate and I couldn’t stop the flow of words coming out of my mouth. I told him that all I could think about after seeing him again was kissing him, because when he kissed me it was like everything around me evaporated and I became this completely different person that belonged only to him and I missed that feeling. I missed being his. But being his had always implied having to lose myself completely and I hated him for it. I hated that to be his I had to stop being me. But beyond that, I hate that he didn’t love either of us enough to put a stop to it.

He tried to say he had changed and he was a better person but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hear it. 

“Listen,” I said, wanting him to understand that I hadn’t meant for this to happen. That it hadn’t been planned. “I know this makes me the asshole and I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I just needed to get you out of my system.”

When his response to this was ‘I love you’, it saddened me but all I could do was smile and look at the floor. It was too late for that now but I didn’t tell him that, wanting to mitigate the assault a little. There was no need to riddle him with emotional gunfire when he was already clearly on his knees in agony.

“Are you going to be ok?” I questioned when my phone buzzed with the notification that my Uber was here. I was asking more because I should care than because I did.

“You asked me that yesterday and I’m not sure why ‘cause it’s not like you give a shit.” he snapped and I smiled again because this was commun. This was the Armie I knew. Petulant and angry in the face of aversion.

“I promised Liz,” I reminded him and he sneered.

“If she asks you can just say yes and the truth will be our little secret.” he offered almost maliciously and this hurt like a cramp deep inside my chest. The pain steadied me again. It was familiar and I welcomed it. It had given me the strength to leave once and it would give me the strength to leave again.

“What’s one more secret and lie in the grand scheme of things, right?” I scoffed, unable to hide the sarcasm in my tone. Clearly nothing had changed. Always another lie, another deception.

I paused for a moment and looked at him; really looked at him. I was trying to convince myself that maybe I was wrong, that finally sharing his truth with Liz and his family could have maybe fostered enough momentum to manifest real change but I just didn’t believe it. He was too afraid of himself to truly be capable of it and I would never trust him enough to not wait for the other shoe to drop. So there it was. I had stopped trusting him. I would never trust him again.

This realization drained me of all emotion. Suddenly, I could feel nothing and I found peace in the emptiness.

I took one last look at him, testing the nothingness to make sure it wasn’t momentary and seeing that it wasn’t, I sighed freely from the respite.

“Bye, Armie.” I said, and walked out of the guest house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you need to yell at me I totally understand. I wont promise that part 4 will resolve this for the boys but I will do my best to get them there. If part 4 can't do it then there will be a part 5. Please be patient with me. I am discovering this story as I write it :)


	4. Exorcism - Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Timmy POV) 
> 
> Timmy learns to navigate the aftermath of his life with Armie following the events of the guesthouse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS A LONG ONE! There is some mild smut like action but really it's all angst and feelings and realization of what he has done and what he has lost..whether Timmy likes it or not.

(Timmy POV)

I hadn’t expected the numbness to permeate all other aspects of my life after I had left Armie in the guest house. Getting home and finding Eiza still there had sparked no emotion. I wasn’t happy to see her. I wasn’t annoyed that she was still there. I just didn’t care. Reason and logic were still present at least. I was still capable of enough introspection to know that that was … odd. For someone who was known to wear his emotions on his sleeves, I was decidedly unemotional. Shouldn’t I be angry? Devastated? I should at least be disgusted with myself for what I had just done. But there was nothing. Just a very heavy lack of caring. 

The pain in and around my ass had dulled to a mild ache once I had layed on my side and rested my head on Eiza’s lap and I welcomed it because at least I could still feel something.

I layed there for a long time, staring at the movie she was watching but not registering anything I was seeing. Eventually I closed my eyes, lulled by her fingers in my hair as she alternated between combing through my curls and scratching her nails against my scalp. I appreciated her silence; be it because she could tell I wasn’t in the mood to share or simply because she didn’t care if I was or not. Either way I appreciated it. 

My inner voice, that had been so fucking chatty and full of spiteful observations at Armie’s, was decidedly silent as well and I appreciate that too. All the sleep I wasn’t able to get the night before, as I had tossed and turned, thinking about Armie and how much I had missed being his, suddenly descended on me like a heavy blanket and I crashed.

I woke up a long while later, my head propped up on a pillow and swaddled comfortably in the duvet from the bed. I was alone. I had a vague recollection of Eiza telling me she was leaving and the feeling of her lips on my cheek but I had thought I was dreaming at the time. I’d forgotten about the pain, having grown accustomed to the dull ache as I slept and when I sat up it shot through me like a lighting bolt. I winced through it and allowed my body to familiarize itself with it, breathing deeply until it became manageable. 

I grabbed my phone to look at the time and was surprised to see that it was late afternoon. I tapped the text message notifications and saw that along with messages from my father, my friend Guillian and Nick, there was one from Eiza. I tapped that one first, noting the time; she had been gone a while.

 **E. González - 1:13 p.m.**  
I’m sorry things got complicated for you again. I ordered you some food, it’s in the fridge. You should eat something. Call me when you figure shit out <3 XX

I chuckled half-heartedly. I wouldn’t say things got complicated, nothing had really changed. But they’d certainly gotten messier. I checked the other messages.

 **Papa - 12:25 p.m.**  
Checking in. Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Appel moi.

My dad wanted me to call him. I knew I had been very lax in my efforts to call my parents since I’d left New York to go to London at the beginning of the year and they were suffering from it. Quarantining in L.A. as opposed to going back to New York had not been received well by my father. He had insisted on daily check-ins and I had missed the last two. He would have to wait a few more I thought to myself and moved on to the text from Guillian.

 **G. - 3:08 p.m.**  
Dude… Do you know how many fucking pics there are of you with a fucking hard-on online? People are still sending me that shit daily. Maybe you should have gone to Vegas instead of Cabo. Cause what happens in Cabo clearly does NOT stay in Cabo. That said, Little Timmy Tim has his own instagram account. Check it out! https://www.instagram.com/littletimmytim/

I'd seen the instagram account. I didn’t need to see it again. I remembered having been upset when the paparazzi pics were released. Not so much because the tent in my shorts left little to the imagination but more so because I knew my parents would be less than impressed with the display. They were far from prudes but they weren’t crass and overt people. Predictably, they had been disappointed in my lack of decorum not in my exhibitionism. I had also been upset for Eiza, who was now being painted by the press and on social media as the latin starlet who bagged herself a leading man and wanted to milk it for all it was worth. The memory of the feeling tried to stoke the anger back up but those embers needed oxygen to thrive and I had none to give it.

I replied with the emoji of the monkey covering his eyes and the laughing out loud one, knowing that that’s what I would have answered had I been more myself and I moved on to the next text.

 **Nick D. S. - 3:47 P.M.**  
I just heard from Liz. She said you went to see Armie. He’s not picking up. Everything ok?

I stared at the screen for so long it eventually turned black. What was I supposed to answer to that? ‘I just fucked his brains out and then left his heart on the rug and trampled it on the out.. But otherwise yeah, he seemed good.’

My first instinct was to ignore it. Pretend like I hadn’t seen the text and hope a follow up wouldn’t come. But I knew Nick pretty well and that wasn’t going to happen. Especially not when it came to Armie. He loved him like a brother and would continue to try and reach him, and then me, until he got an answer. 

_**Me - 4:16 P.M.**_  
No! You should go and check up on him.

I knew as I hit send that my phone would ring soon after but I hadn’t expected it to be so quick. I had just set it down on the coffee table and was about to curl back up on the couch under the comforter when it buzzed furiously against the glass top. Predictably, the caller ID showed Nick’s information. I picked up after the fourth vibration.

“What’s going on?” he wanted to know. “What happened?” 

I didn’t want to lie so I remained vague and told him things didn’t go so well and he should check on his friend. If he registered that I had referred to Armie as ‘his friend’ as opposed to ours or simply Armie, Nick didn’t mention it. 

‘’Are you ok?’’ he asked, with the emphasis on the ‘you’, telling me he was also worried about me. I brushed it off dully. He asked again and this time I lied saying I was fine. I wasn't fine; I was nothing. But I had enough common sense to know that that wasn’t an acceptable answer given the circumstances. I don’t think he believed me but Armie seemed a more urgent matter to tend to so he told me he’d call me later and hung up. I was pretty sure that if he did call after he spoke to Armie, it would be to tell me I was a horrible human being and I should stay away from him and all his friends going forward. 

This didn’t upset me per se. It was the memory of what I should be feeling that tickled the inside of my chest, telling me that I might regret losing him as a friend if I didn’t do something. But what? I had done what I had done and they would hate me for it; as they should. 

I sighed and stretched again, wanting to go back to sleep because oblivion was less boring than conscious void but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Instead I got up, went to the fridge to see what Eiza had left for me. I wasn’t hungry but sat on the edge of a hard wooden chair at the little breakfast table nonetheless, leaning forward so most of my weight was on the back of my thighs and I ate cold chicken drumsticks with rice and beans, not bothering to heat the plate in the microwave.

I showered. As I was undressing I couldn’t help but turn my back to the mirror so I could see the state of the bruises on my ass. They had already turned black and blue, perfect imprints of his fingers and him palms, covering each cheek almost in its entirety. I placed my hand over one of his prints, my fingers splayed to match his, the paleness of my skin contrasting against the darkness of the contusions which bordered it. 

‘’Jesus’’, I said aloud, the sound almost echoing in my ears after hours in silence. I looked up and caught my reflection; I looked pleased with myself. What the fuck was wrong with me? 

The water was scalding and it took a minute for my body to adjust, my skin turning red under the jet. I allowed the warmth and pummeling to soften the muscles in my neck and my shoulders before I leaned my head back so the water could cascade down my face and onto my chest, the penetrating heat swaddling me in a cocoon of comfort.

Physical sensation was intensified it seemed now that it was the only thing I was feeling. I washed my body extensively, feeling lighter as the suds sluiced off under the spray and circled down the drain as though it was more than just the day’s grim being cleansed away. I lathered up my right hand and when it was sufficiently soapy I twisted my arm behind my back and gingerly slipped a few fingers between my tender ass cheeks. 

It hurt more than I had expected it too. The soap burned against my orifice and my eyes watered. I could feel that it was slightly swollen and I winced against the pain as I gently ran the tip of my middle finger against it to clean it properly. It felt good despite hurting and immediately my mind went to Armie and how amazing it had felt to have him inside again. My cock twitched at the memory of it and I found myself pushing the tip of my finger past the clenched muscles up to the first knuckle. I was half hard within seconds and my head was swimming in need for him again. 

I moaned loudly, pushing my finger in further and my cock stood at full attention. Pulling out felt as good as pushing in and I moaned again, his name on the tip of my tongue which I bit to prevent its escape. I leaned against the shower wall and wrapped my still soapy hand around my erection; it throbbed against my palm. 

I wanted to think about Eiza, or this guy from college I still fantasized about once in a while because he had given me a rim job so thorough I had come from just that; instead my mind wandered to Armie and one of the last times we had been together before I left him. It was in London in the fall of 2019. I was doing promo for the premiere of The King and he was in the city filming Death on the Nile. It had been a long time since we had seen each other and I had been waiting for it with a ferocious need. Not just to have him ravage me, which I was anticipating greatly, but also for the safety of his arms, for the reassurance of his words spoken directly into my ear as opposed to through a screen, but mostly to feel his heart beating against my chest so I knew he was real. 

As were all our reunions, our first night was voltaic. We had the promise of three days together and falling asleep in his arms after he had made love to me had been glorious. But from the moment I woke up the next morning, I was already aware of the clock. How I hated that fucking clock. Always ticking in the background of our time together. Counting down until I had to say goodbye again.

Why was it that we could never seem to get more than three days together at anyone time? 72 hours was never enough and this time, most of our sojourn was spent apart, with him filming and me doing press and attending events. I felt as though I had barely seen him and on the morning of our last day together I had woken up with a terrible panic attack at the thought that in less than 24hrs we would be separated again. 

We’d seen each other barely more than 10 hrs in the past 48. I couldn’t keep doing this. Every time we said goodbye a little part of me was chipped away and left like little horcruxes in hotel rooms or wherever else it was we managed to steal time; and it was killing me.

After helping me breathe through it, Armie had spurred into action. He called his manager and feigned illness saying he couldn’t make it to set that day, telling her to do whatever she needed to do to cover for him. She wasn’t happy but he hadn’t given her a choice. Then he had taken my cell phone and texted Brian, my agent, and pretending to be me he had insisted that all my engagements for the day be canceled because I had a bad case of food poisoning. I knew Brian would see right through this ruse but we were staying at Armie’s and he didn't know where to find me. So my phone was put on silent and we had spent the day in bed, fucking and reading to each other. 

I had been fighting sleep as I lay my head on his lap and he brushed through my curls with his fingers, his voice soothing me into a state of complete relaxation as he read me the last chapters of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. We had been reading the books together since I had lived with him in L.A., only picking up where we left off when we were together. It wasn’t lost on me that in over two years we were just now finishing the fourth novel in the series. 

I’d been woken up by Armie’s hand stroking my already hard cock and I could tell I was already close. I had opened my eyes to his beautiful face, looking at me like I was God’s gift to humanity, his own erection bulging in his boxers next to my cheek. 

That’s what I thought about as I jerk off in the shower now, our last afternoon together before it all went to shit. I thought about how his hand had felt stroking me. I thought about the way his breath had hitched in his chest when I had turned my torso to face his crotch and with a determined hand had unsheathed his erection from its confines and taken him into my mouth without hesitation. I thought about the way his other hand felt fisting into my hair and how my throat had burned from the intrusion. 

It didn’t take long that I was thinking about how hard I had come, moaning around his cock, feeling it jolt against my tongue before he came too, telling me he loved me, the words filled with the promises we had made to each other that day and I came all over the shower floor. 

“Fuck.” I said out loud again, watching my come swirl down the drain, once more feeling nothing but mild annoyance at my brain’s choice of masturbation material.

The next two days were spent in much the same way. I took a queue from my memories of our time together in London and put my phone on silent. I ordered food once or twice a day, pushing it around my plate more than eating it and I watched too many hours of reruns on the cartoon network. I jerked off a few times but eventually got frustrated because no matter what I tried to focus on my mind would inevitably come back to him and how it felt when he touched me or told me he wanted me… or worse, when he said he loved me. But mostly I slept. 

Nick never called back. I didn’t text Eiza. It had been fun but it was over. I had known it the moment I had laid eyes on Armie after all that time and despite my best effort to ignore it, my heart had exploded. I wished I could be sad about it. She deserved at least that. But I remained a vacant chasm. 

I spent my time in bed or on the couch, waiting for my body to heal, for it to stop hurting when I moved, telling myself that once it did, it would finally be over and I would be able to get on with my life.

On the third day I woke up from a bad dream that I didn’t remember, feeling anxious and claustrophobic. After more than 48 hours of nothing but boredom and general apathy, it left me breathless. I felt agitated and tense and I was convinced my small apartment had shrunk overnight. No amount of deep breathing and reasoning could make the walls stop closing in on me so I got dressed and left before the apartment swallowed me whole. 

Whether it was the fresh air or simply the change in scenery, the panic attack dissipated quickly but the indifference did not return. Instead there was an odd tingle that started in my stomach and became more of an itch in my chest as the day unfolded. I walked around the neighborhood for a while, the bustle of the workday busy around me, which provided me a certain level of anonymity in addition to the baseball cap and the mask. I went back home mid afternoon ready to resume my lethargical tv watching but couldn’t focus. My mind felt like its cogs were slowly beginning to rotate again after having been rusted shut for far too long. It was laborious and uncomfortable but once it started, I couldn't stop it.

The events of the last week or so began to replay in my head. At first it was like watching a silent movie in which everyone appeared to be caricatures or themselves, overemphasizing facial expressions to compensate for the lack of sound. It seemed almost comical. Eventually bits of dialogue began to worm their way into my consciousness but nobody sounded like themselves. It was as though I was watching an old black and white and the actors, up until then used to performing on a stage, hadn’t yet gotten accustomed to the audience being so close. So they enunciated every word to overcome acoustic limitations, all the while speaking with that mid-Atlantic accent contrived by the era which made everyone sound breathy and melancholy.

As the day wore on, memories became clearer and lost the fairytale sheen of the silver screen. As color began to seep into the moving pictures in my head, they became more vivid, grittier, realer. My protective shield of emotional nihility began to crack under the weight of what had happened. Not just in the past week, but in the past year, or probably even the past four. 

And as its heaviness began to settle on my chest and in my shoulders, the emotions I had hidden away in the recesses of my heart flooded my entire being as though they were being redistributed to my body via my vascular system. By nightfall I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I wasn’t short of breath; I simply couldn’t breathe. When the tears finally came, after the horrendousness of what I had done had finally hit me, they burned like acid but felt viscous dripping down my cheeks, as though they were so filled with toxicity they were thick and cloudy. My grief was so substantial it was coming out of my pores and I didn’t know how to control it. 

Suddenly I wanted to take it back. All of it. Not because I wasn't justified in wanting more for myself but because if this was what really being without him was going to be like, I wouldn’t survive it. 

By midnight I knew I needed help. I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed the number of the only person I knew who would be able to stop this quicksand of suffering from swallowing me whole.

“Mama?” I said when she answered, my voice dry, barely above a whisper. Her voice sounded thick with sleep but she was alert. It was three a.m. in New York. No doubt being woken up by her 24 year old son in the middle of the night had told her something must be wrong. The immediate comfort at hearing her voice despite the worry in it was like a boost of oxygen straight to my lungs and although it hurt, I was able to intake enough air to say “Mama I need you. Can you come get me?”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m not sure how I managed to keep from drowning in the time it took for my superhero mother to get from New York to L.A. with no booked flight and COVID traveling restrictions, but when she showed up at my door not even 12 hours later, I dropped to my knees with relief and utter exhaustion. 

She held me there for a longtime, standing in the open doorway of my tiny rental apartment, her hands alternating between rubbing my back and caressing my hair as I pressed my face into her stomach and sobbed.

I hadn’t seen her since January and it was now the end of July. Guilt of this negligence added to my already distraught state and I muttered an apology through tears that soaked her shirt. She didn’t tell me it was going to be ok. My mother didn’t lie to me. She simply allowed me to just be. I was immensely grateful that the universe had thought enough of me to make this woman my mother. The love I felt for her was the first spark of positive emotion I had felt in a while and it gave me the strength to get up off the floor and move to the couch.

I spent a good portion of the day there, cradled in her arms, my body adjusting itself to hers easily despite the fact that I was now much taller than she was. I had done this a lot growing up, cuddling with her on the couch as we watched TV or just talked. This time we did neither. She just held me until my body stopped trembling and my staccatoed heaves dissipated. She didn’t ask a lot of questions. She knew instinctively what had brought me to this point, having probably predicted it years prior but knowing that only by doing would I learn the lessons I need to learn from this experience, whatever those were.

She made me tea and toasted bagels for lunch and then again for dinner. Eventually, once I had calmed down she asked me what I wanted to do.

“I want to go home,” I told her. 

I didn’t just mean New York. I meant home, with her and my dad. My sister was there too and I wanted to spend time with them. I was due in Budapest by mid august and who knows how long I would be gone this time. I wanted to sleep in my old room, which my mom hadn’t touched since I had left, leaving all my posters on the walls and all my teddy bears lining the bed. I wanted the comfort of my mom’s cooking and the healing of my dad’s dinner conversation. I even longed for the annoyance of my sister’s teasing because it was familiar and it made me feel normal. Because she didn’t care that I was now a Hollywood star. To her I would always be her obnoxious little brother and she made a point of reminding me of that and I loved her for it.

Within an hour we were booked on the first flight out the next morning, my mom had spoken to the rental company and closed out my lease, she wasn’t just a superhero she was also a kick ass negotiator, and we had started to get the apartment tidied up and my things packed. 

When we landed in New York the next afternoon, I felt the weight that had been sitting on my shoulders and on my chest begin to lift. That’s not to say that I wasn’t sad. I was still devasted, but distance from the emotional murder-suicide I had committed in the guesthouse that had once been Armie and I’s sanctuary seemed to help. 

My father was waiting for us at Arrivals and although I was a little apprehensive of his reaction, he surprised me by embracing me long and hard, his voice thick with feeling when he said he had missed me.

Once home, I didn’t leave the apartment for an entire week. In fact I barely left my room other than to use the bathroom and for family meals. My friends came to visit. My sister and I watched movies. I was 16 again and it was amazing. 

Nobody pushed me to talk about what had happened. I knew my father wanted too but my mother easily controlled this with warning looks from across the table that she concealed poorly. This too was reminiscent of my youth; silent conversations spoken through facial expressions alone, that inevitably ended with my father conceding with a sigh because no one was a match for the force that was my mother. She was gale force winds bottled up in a tiny little package. My sister too. I was more like my father. 

I spent a lot of time practicing my guitar and connecting with my teacher online to go over new pieces. Although there was no start date for the Dylan project, it kept me busy and my mind occupied. 

When I finally ventured out, the fresh air hit my lungs and invigorated me. I felt more like myself here, walking the streets in my city, the place that grounded me and reminded me of who I was and wanted to always be.

I stopped in at my favorite bagel place and got myself an egg-bacon-cheese and a coffee to go and took a walk to my apartment. I had expected it to feel stuffy and still be in the disarray I had left it in, but it smelled fresh and it had been tidied and kept clean. ‘Mama!’ I thought fondly, making a mental note to thank her when I got home.

I had come to switch out my wardrobe. I had been wearing more or less the same clothes, plus a few additions bought along the way, since I had left New York in January, thinking at the time that I’d be back before May. 

I hadn't expected it to feel so awkward being here. It was familiar and foreign at the same time. It was as though it was mine but not really. Not like my room at my parents. That was home. This was… temporary. It also held memories of Armie. He hadn’t spent a lot of time here. A few days here and there over the years, nothing more. But even more so than the guesthouse in L.A., my apartment had served as even more of a refuge for us because it was fully ours and there was no risk of getting caught. We had rarely left it when he had visited, spending hours if not days in bed talking about what our future would be like knowing only for certain that we wanted it to feel like this; no pressure to be someone we weren’t, no need to hide, no more subterfuge and most of all, knowing that if we wanted to be together we could be, whenever we wanted to.

Forcing myself to ignore the panic and distress growing in my chest at the retrospective my brain was currently scrolling through, I rummaged in my closet and pulled out a duffle bag from its recesses. I filled it with what I wanted to bring to Budapest and grabbed some shorts and my bathing suit as well to bring on the weekend trip my father had planned.

In an effort to get me out of my room, he had suggested we take a quick trip up to my aunt’s beach house in Southampton. Just 3 or 4 days to get away and reconnect as a family before I was going to be gone again for another 3 or more months. I had always liked it there and my mother thought the Atlantic sea air would help clear my mind. She had made sure to specify the Atlantic sea air, as thought the Pacific sea air had somehow been partly at fault for my recent… issues.

I didn’t linger in my apartment. I didn't sit on the bed. I didn’t turn on the TV or connect my phone to the bluetooth speakers to listen to some music while I hung out. I took what I had come for and left, locking the door behind me, thinking rather sullenly that this was probably the last time I would see this place.

I am not sure when the idea had formed. Whether it was upon remembering the time Armie and I had cuddled on my small loveseat and binge-watched an entire season of The Office together; or if it was when I had thought back to so many nights spent lying alone on my bed with my computer propped up on the bedside table so I could video chat with Armie, my phone not being big enough for what we were doing, because I need to see him properly if I wasn’t able to touch him; or during any number of memories tidy to Armie this apartment kept for me, but I was now determined to ask my mom - who as well as being a mother, a superhero, a kick-ass negotiator, also happened to be a real estate agent - to find me a new place for when I came back from the Dune reshoots.

It didn’t have to be bigger, although that would be nice given that I could now afford bigger, but it had to be a new start; for a new life; for the new, Armie free, me.

We left for the Hamptons the next day. My aunt’s summer house was right on Cooper’s beach, a long stretch of white sand and pristine water with big surf and clean salty air. The water was a little choppy for my liking but the village was quaint and walks on the shore collecting seashells with my sister were memories I cherished. I found the room that had always been mine when I visited and dropped my bag on the bed before heading down to the beach with my parents.

We ate lobster rolls on the back porch for dinner and we spent the evening there as well while my parents read and I practiced my guitar. My sister had stayed in New York because of work engagements and so this was the first time in a long time that I had been alone with both of them for any length of time. It was nice, comfortable. I felt safe here with them. As though this was a place the past four years couldn’t find me. Here, my longing for Armie didn’t exist. This was a place we had never been together. Here I was free to be a version of myself he had never met. It was emancipating.

  
I was the first to wake up the next morning and decided to go to the village for breakfast. I left a note for my parents on the kitchen island and headed out on one of the bikes from the garage my aunt provided for visitors. It wasn’t a long ride to Main street where I found a little cafe with a terrasse where I could sit undisturbed. I was sitting at a corner table out of the sun, drinking my second cup of coffee and reading a script my agent had sent me a few weeks ago but hadn’t gotten to yet. With Covid and the Dylan picture still without a shooting schedule, there had been no urgency to look for a new project. 

I had been engrossed in a scene I was reading when I was distracted by flits of french coming from the table next to me. I looked up from the script briefly to see the woman sitting at the table next me, in the chair that would have been opposite mine, having a telephone conversation. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, with long medium brown hair that cascaded down her back in long straight strands that would blow into her face everytime the wind picked up. She was pleasant looking though I couldn’t see her eyes because of the dark rimmed cateye sunglasses she wore. Her face was heart shaped with a wide forehead and a narrow chin and plump cheeks that raised her frames every time she smiled.

I could tell she was trying to speak quietly so as not to disturb but it was clear her grandmother was hard of hearing and she needed to speak up. I knew she had been speaking to her grandmother because she had addressed her as Grandmaman. I felt bad eavesdropping but it wasn’t everyday I heard the french language spoken in the States other than at home and my ear was drawn to it. She had hung up after assuring her grandmother that she was fine and that she would call her when she got home in a few days. I knew by her accent that she wasn’t French. Her accent was very different from what I had grown up hearing. The vowel sounds were noticeably different, more nazily and pronounced. Canadian maybe? She was clearly a native speaker though given the ease with which she expressed herself.

Curious, I apologized for interrupting her and in french, asked her if she was from Montreal. She smiled and said that she was. It wasn’t long that we were chatting enthusiastically about Montreal, France - which she had never visited but would love too someday - and my summers spent at my grandmother’s in the region of Auvergne. 

I introduced myself once I had finished my third coffee and went to order a fourth one, offering to get her one as well. She refused, stating it wasn’t necessary but I insisted and she eventually accepted. Her name was Julie and she was 36. She had hesitated telling her age when I had asked, smiling coyly when she had stated she was too old to be asked that question but continued immediately to give me the number. In my defense, she had brought it up to begin with when she mentioned having had a birthday recently. I wasn’t sure if she knew who I was but if she did, she didn’t seem to care which was refreshing.

She was easy to talk to, listening actively and interjecting with insight when appropriate rather than simply waiting for her turn to speak. Time went by quickly and when a server came to ask if we would like to see the lunch menu, I offered to buy her lunch. This time she accepted without an argument. I offered to help her with the menu but she said she’d be ok. Once the server came back for our order, she requested a bacon cheeseburger without even a hint of an accent. Her english was flawless and she looked sheepish upon seeing I was flummoxed. She laughed when I threw a napkin at her, mouth open and her smile reaching her green eyes. She was beautiful and I told her so which made her blush and look away. 

Being with her was effortless and whether it was this or the beers we’d ordered with our burgers, when she asked me what brought me to the Hamptons, I found myself recounting the events of what had happened in L.A., which had brought me home to New York and then here.

I had remained vague, not mentioning names or our professions, not because I didn’t want her to know but because I still had the reflex, even after all these years, of keeping us a secret to protect Armie. This realization angered me and my mood darkened. I apologized and she brushed it off.

“Don’t apologize for your feelings.” she said, reaching a hand across the table and covering mine in a comforting gesture. “The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share them with.”

“Paulo Coelho?” I questioned, recognizing the quote and she nodded, impressed. I liked that I had impressed her. I also liked that she could quote Coelho easily.

After our meal we lingered through another coffee - she had coffee, I had tea. 4 coffees in one morning was probably already too many - but eventually she had to leave. She didn’t seem like she wanted to but she had to be in Montauk by 2pm for an estate sale; there was a teapot being sold at the auction that she wanted to buy for her grandmother. I’m not sure what had gotten into me but without thinking I asked her if I could tag along. Her smile was immediate and she agreed. 

I asked the server for the bill and she laughed, when while we waited, I said I had to text my mother to let her know where I was going. “Shut up, I’m a grown ass man ok. My mom worries that’s all.” I said laughing with her, grinning as I typed the message, her “Whatever dude!" ringing pleasantly in my ears as I did so. I hadn’t felt this light and free in a while.

She drove an old Jeep Wrangler with a soft cover top that had been removed. I locked my bike to the rack on the back and got in, ready for a brief adventure. Driving off she threw her phone on my lap and asked me to connect to her Spotify and put on her driving playlist. I scrolled through the series of songs and then looked at her, mouth agape. It was now her turn to tell me to shut up, her checks having turned a pleasant pink with embarrassment which she offset by ordering me to sing along, insisting that singing out loud was liberating and cathartic; especially to cheesy commercial pop.

We spent the hour drive to Montauk singing at the top of our lungs to tracks by Britney Spears and The Backstreet Boys. I’d be lying if I had pretended like I hadn’t known most of the words. 

The estate sale was fun. I was a little nervous going in that I would get recognized and that might change the dynamic I had with my new friend but I realized I was safe in that regard when I saw the crowd. We were by far the youngest people there. 

I liked the way she talked about the pieces of art that attracted her and how she challenged me to appreciate things I wouldn't have looked at twice. This reminded me of Armie who was much more into mainstream things than I had been; turning my nose up to them on principle that they were too common, too popular and I was intellectually superior to such things. He had taught me to appreciate art for the feelings it elicited rather than the caché a name inspired.

During the auction, Julie was able to purchase the teapot for her grandmother and I purchased an antique onyx pendant for my sister and a pair of pearl earrings for my mother. The event organizer tried to convince me that these were pieces of great value and I was lucky to get them at such a steal. The truth was I didn’t care how much they were worth or if I had possibly paid too much or too little for them. I was just happy to buy something for the women in my life that I had undervalued lately. This wouldn’t make up for this oversight but it would at least show that I had thought about them now.

“I love that you’re a mama’s boy,” Julie had said once we had left the auction with our purchases and stored them safely in the trunk of her jeep. “Your mom is lucky to have you.” I had been called this often, usually in a derogatory manner and it surprised me that she had meant it as an endearment. The only other person who had said such things to me was Armie, who had reminded me to cherish the relationship I had with my mom because he had never had that and envied it. 

I smiled at the compliment but pointed out that I was the lucky one given what she had just done for me in L.A., during my whole life to be honest, and that although I may be a mama’s boy, I hadn’t been a very good son lately and this upset me. 

Most people would have tried to defend it; told me that it was understandable and maybe even normal given my age, the travel/work requirements I faced in addition to Covid. But she didn’t. 

“It is what it is. If you don’t like it, change it. Do better going forward,” she stated, matter of fact, her tone free of judgement or shaming. I nodded in agreeance because what else could I say other than say you’re right and I will. 

I liked the way she said things, a reflection that made me chuckle to myself; because that was an Oliver thing to say and maybe with age I was becoming more he, than Elio. But it was true, when she spoke there was no fuss or skirting around issues to avoid hurting someone's feelings and yet there was no malice or judgment in her delivery. She didn’t apologize for her opinions and her beliefs. It was refreshing coming from an environment where I was placated and smoozed on a daily basis.

It was nearing supper time once we had left the estate sale grounds and she had asked me if I wanted to head back or grab some dinner. I opted for the latter and she insisted that this time it be her treat. I tried to argue but she’d threatened to leave me on the side of the road if I didn’t ‘’say thank you and then shush.’’; so I complied.

We grabbed a bunch of Tacos and some drinks at La Brisa Taqueria and headed to the beach. She had a blanket in the car that we stretched out on a quiet span of sand where we settled in to eat just as the sun was setting. She wasn't kidding when she said that these were the best tacos in New York State. I scarfed down my three in a few minutes and ended up eating one of hers. She watched me, amused and when I was done, she stretched to wipe some sour cream from my cheek with her thumb, bringing it to her mouth after. 

I wondered what it would be like to kiss her and if she’d even let me. She wasn’t that much older than Armie so it wasn’t that much of a stretch. 10 or 12 years older what was the difference. Besides, she was all plush curves and soft pale pink skin and I wanted to feel her become liquid and pliable under me. I needed the distraction because no matter how much I liked hanging out with her, my mind inevitably wandered back to Armie and then the guest house and the more time passed, the harder it was to ignore it. Making out, or better yet having sex, gave me a thether to the immediate and allowed me to recenter. It was easier to stop my mind from drifting when I could focus on physical sensations. I had learned this trick in the year after I had left Armie, finding reprieve from the pain between the thighs of bodies that looked nothing like his.

My eyes were immediately drawn to her lips as she spoke. I licked mine unconsciously, my mouth watering at the thought of tasting her tongue, before looking up at her again to find she was watching me. I allowed a beat of time to pass between us and then lowered my eyes to her mouth again as I leaned in.

“Don’t!” she said and it startled me into drawing back. She smiled softly, just a hint of a smirk lifting her right cheek higher than the left.

“Don’t what?” I asked defensively, trying to hide feeling caught and rejected; two things I wasn’t used to anymore when it came to sex. I didn’t like to brag but it had been a long time since I’d been told no. And though I didn’t take advantage of it, I had come to expect being wanted. This time she did smirk. 

“You were going to kiss me. Don’t.” She stated and seeing as I was obviously going to protest she added: “It’s not that I don’t want you too. I mean, LOOK at you. Obviously I want you too; but I don’t do casual hook-ups… Especially with 24 year olds. Besides, It’s not me you want, it’s him, that guy in the guesthouse. And until you’ve worked through that, I don’t think you should be making out with anyone, much less someone like me. It’s not fair to them and it’s definitely not fair to me.”

“I don’t want him. I told you it’s over between us.” I tried to convince her, sitting with my arms crossed defensively while I side-eyed her petulantly despite myself. This made her laugh again. 

“Not wanting to be with someone and no longer wanting that person are two very separate things.” 

She leaned back on her hands and stretched out her legs, resting her crossed ankles on one of my knees. I wanted to push her legs off me and at the same time I appreciated that by doing this she was showing me that there should be no hard feelings to what had just happened between us.

“I don’t though. Want him, I mean. Not anymore.” I pressed, clearly trying to convince myself more than her.

“You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. And beyond that, awareness without action is worthless. Acknowledge that you still want him. And then you can figure out how to stop, if that’s really what you want.’’

“Coelho again?” I asked, flippant, still annoyed at the rejection.

“Dr. Phil actually.” she replied sheepishly, grinning in a way that made her nose wrinkle.

I was unable to contain a laugh and that broke the mood I had forced to settle between us. I took a moment to consider what she had said, wondering if maybe she was right and realized she probably was, otherwise why would I have gone back to the guesthouse that morning?

“Hey! What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” she questioned when my eyes drifted off into the horizon for a long time, stretching to tug on a loose curl to get my attention.

I told her I didn’t understand why I had acted the way I had that morning at Armie's. I hadn't set out to deliberately hurt him, of that I was certain. I wasn’t a mean person; and yet I had done just that. In fact I had made a point of it. I had even made him hurt me knowing he would feel guilty about it and I took pleasure in that. That was pretty fucked up. She too pondered this for a moment.

“Maybe you hurt him hoping if you did he wouldn't want you anymore. That way even if you decided tomorrow you wanted to be him again, he wouldn’t want you back. It’s a sort of self-destructive self-protection thing I think. If he doesn’t want you anymore you can’t get hurt again.’’

That made sense. I was clearly unable to stay away, if the past four years had been any indication; even when I knew I should. So maybe unconsciously I ensured he would stay away from me now. Because everytime I tried to put a stop to what we were doing he would convince me otherwise. 

‘’It’s like he had this weird control over me.’’ I told her, resentment bubbling up again below my breastbone.

“That’s not fair.” she interjected. “He only had control if you allowed him to have it. It was in your power to take it away. You couldn't control your own desire for him is probably more accurate.”

I didn’t like this turn in the conversation. I was much more comfortable assigning blame than I was taking it. If it was impossible for me to let go it was because he made a point of holding on tight. He refused to let go so how could I? I couldn’t possibly be held responsible for not being able to let go of him if he wouldn't let go of me?

“Listen, everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks on it. So I get it. But you’re still responsible for you. For your decisions and for your actions. Or lack thereof even. I’m not saying it would have been easy but it was still in your power to put a stop to it earlier.”

I wanted to object. To tell her that I had tried. Or at least that I had wanted to bring it up many times but then life got in the way and I didn’t. 

“Sounds like maybe you were avoiding the conversation as much as he was trying to prevent it. And by avoiding difficult conversations we trade short term discomfort for long term dysfunction. That’s a Peter Bromberg quote by the way. It’s something my therapist says to me repeatedly.” 

Her open admission at seeing a therapist took me off guard. Most people wouldn't so readily provide that information but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She had been very straightforward since the beginning.

“You guys clearly love each other.” she continued and I interrupted her, because clearly he didn’t love the way I deserved to be loved. 

Love wasn’t enough. That’s something I had learned the hard way over the past four years. He hadn’t loved me enough to change; either himself or our circumstances, no matter how much it was hurting me to continue hiding the way we were. So it didn’t matter if we loved each other. His love almost killed me. Though this statement sounded extreme, it felt accurate. 

Again she said I was being unfair. My anger flared but I controlled it quickly and took a deep breath to calm myself so I could ask her how so? Something told me I should be paying attention. 

“From what you’ve told me he had more to lose than you did. There was more risk for him, more people to hurt. And he had an entire life to dismantle. He has kids right? That’s not a small thing. And yet he did it. It may not have been you were ready for him too, but he did it anyway. And I think he did it for you.”

I was quiet for a while because I knew logically she was right but it didn’t change that it was too late and I didn’t know how to voice that without sounding like an asshole. Because I knew how hard it must have been for him to come clean with Liz and his family but I couldn't get past the resentment I felt by then. 

Eventually I managed to tell her this and she smiled knowingly. I immediately felt like she understood and the palliative relief this brought on was unexpected. Tears began to sting my eyes and I looked away, brushing one that had strayed with my shoulder so she wouldn’t see it. 

I felt guilty for being resentful and for the damage my recent actions had undoubtedly caused him and yet I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him. Julie took her feet off of my lap and scooched closer so she could give me a hug. I let her hold me and contained the urge to kiss her neck because I didn’t want to ruin this new friendship that we seemed to be building because I was now in the habit of avoiding my feelings by engaging in various sexual activities.

We talked until the air grew cool and the moon was the only light in the sky. When we began to shiver, we moved the blanket from under to over us and I pulled it over both of our shoulders as we talked some more. Eventually we grew quiet, Julie resting her head on my shoulder and me resting mine over hers. We listened to the wave and when she began to yawn, trying in vain to conceal it, I reluctantly said we should head back to Southampton.

Back at the jeep, she fished two dark colored hoodies out from a duffle bag in the trunk and after I had slipped one on, she threw me the keys and told me I was driving home. We left the music off on the return trip and after a period of silence I asked her if I could ask her a personal question. When she said yes I asked her why she was seeing a therapist. 

For the first time since I’d asked her how old she was, she hesitated before answering but only in the sense that she asked me why I was asking first. I was simply curious I’d said, which was the truth but not the whole truth. However, as this seemed to satisfy her, I didn’t offer the full reason.

She told me she too had been in a difficult relationship. The person she was with was verbally abusive and manipulative. When she had finally left him, he had committed suicide as a final act of revenge. She had started therapy following that event because she was having a hard time coping with the scars this relationship had left on her heart and her soul. 

I was horrified. Here I was going on and on over my situation with Armie when this poor girl had someone kill themselves to get back at her. I tried to apologize for not having asked about her journey more, for having gone on about me and my problems and not really taken the time to find out about hers when clearly she was going through something much bigger than I was. She brushed this off with a wave of her hand.

“Everyone suffers differently and for different reasons,” she said, weighing her words to show me they were important and I should pay attention despite keeping my eyes on the road. “That doesn’t mean that yours should be diminished or perceived as inconsequential or worthless. Your suffering is valid; your feelings matter. No comparisons should tell you otherwise.”

“Dr. Phil again?” I asked, jokingly and she slapped my thigh with feigned annoyance.

“Hey. Don’t knock Dr. Phil. He’s a smart man.” she laughed but then more seriously added: “Actually that’s something my therapist helped me realize. Because like you I always thought my feelings were unimportant. But they aren’t and I hope it doesn't take you as long to figure that out as it did me.”

“Do you think maybe I should see someone?” I asked her tentatively, this being the real reason why I had brought up the subject just now. 

“I think everyone should see a therapist at least once in their lives.’’ she said staring out into the rapidly moving scenery on the passenger side. ‘’Everyone has unresolved trauma and there is no shame in seeking out help. But it doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what you think. So let me ask you. Do you think you should talk to someone?”’

‘’Maybe.’’ I said after a while, thinking about it honestly. ‘’Yeah, I guess I should. I need to stop being so angry all the time. I don’t think I can ever forgive him. But the anger is killing me as much the hiding was.’’ 

We spent the rest of the ride home talking about my options. In person consultation would be difficult because I was leaving for Hungary in less than a week and didn’t know where work would take me after. Julie suggested putting me in contact with her therapist whose practice included an online clinic for people in similar situations to mine. She wasn’t sure her therapist was licensed to practice outside of Montreal but if not, maybe she could point me toward some colleagues that could help. 

A sense of reprieve washed over me. It felt good to have a plan, to know that I was going to work towards forward momentum rather than threading water in the stagnant pool of resentment and anger I had been slowly drowning in this past year. 

When the Jeep pulled up to my aunt’s beach house, Julie got out with me and waited as I unhooked my bike from the rack in the back. There was a moment of awkwardness when we knew we had to say goodbye but not wanting to be the one to say it first.

“Can I call you sometime?” I asked, running a hand through my hair and tucking a strand behind my ear which I often did when I was nervous or anxious. I had given her my number earlier and she had texted me her therapist’s contact information so I knew I could text her if I wanted too but I still wanted to ask permission, if only to validate that she felt the same way I did in wanting to pursue this friendship.

“I’d like that.” she answered with a smile and a warm feeling filled my chest.

We hugged and she kissed my cheek before getting back in the car as I started to make my way up the front walk. I was halfway to the door when I remembered her hoodie. 

“Hey! Your sweater.” I boomed before realizing the late hour.

“Keep it. You can give it back to me the next time we see each other.” she said as she started the car. I nodded and laughed. The prospect of seeing her again made me happy. I had many acquaintances but only a handful I considered friends. I was glad she was now one of them.

My dad was waiting up when I went inside, reading in one of the dark leather armchairs of the living room under a single pedestal lamp. The rest of the house was dark, my mother having already turned in. I gave him a hug, saying “Allo, Papa,” as I bent down to do so. He hugged me back and asked where I had been all day. I told him about Julie and the estate sale, showed him the jewelry I had bought for my mom and my sister and then had a long conversation with him about my wanting to start therapy. He told me he was proud of me and he and my mother would support me through any decisions I made.

I slept better that night than I had slept in a long time.

Dr. Montpellier, Julie’s therapist, was in fact not licensed to practice in New York but she did refer me to a friend of hers who was a well renowned psychologist with a small active online clinic. I began my weekly meetings with Dr. Cristos the week I left for Budapest. My shooting schedule was awkward and he had been accommodating with that as well as the six hour time difference.

I had also kept in touch with Julie, speaking to her often and within a few months, I was beginning to feel better. I missed Armie terribly but the pain was different then it had been when I had walked out on him in the guesthouse. It was heartache at what I had lost and mourning for the relationship I wished we had had; but my anger had abated as had my resentment. 

The disappearance of these had left room for a new understanding of myself and it helped me figure out what I wanted for my future. Therapy had provided a road map of sorts. Tools and stratagems to carving out a new me amongst the rubble of the past. 

But mostly I learned to accept that love isn’t perfect. It isn’t a fairy tale, it isn’t a storybook and it doesn’t always come easy. I had put Armie on such a high and narrow pedestal that I made it impossible for him not to fall. And that was unfair of me. Idolatry isn’t love.

Love is finding a way to overcome obstacles and face challenges together. It’s hard work and I had wanted it to be easy. As Julie had pointed out, Armie had worked hard and made great strides toward becoming the man I wanted him to be and I was the one who failed in that regard with my impatience. Yes it had taken him a long time but it was true that he had more to lose.

That’s not to say that I hadn’t had valid reasons for feeling hurt and not wanting to keep waiting for something I had been shown no sign of happening. We had hurt each other, in our own ways. But I hoped that with time, I’d be able to forgive him even if I doubted he could ever forgive me. There was likely no coming back from that and that made me sad. 

But with the help of Dr. Cristos and maybe a little leaning on Julie for advice, I would no doubt learn to live with that. And maybe one day, if we ran into each other, I would be able to tell him that I was sorry and thank him for having loved me. Because I knew that he undeniably had. And I hoped if that day came, he would allow me to tell him that I had loved him too… and probably always would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was written long ago but I knew I needed to write the epilogue so the boys could have their happily ever after. I didn't want to leave you guys with sad feelings again so I decided to wait til both we done to post. I hope you enjoy reading the epilogue as much as I did.


	5. Exorcism - Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And they all lived happily ever after... eventually... the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some angst here until the boys FINALLY find their way back to each other and then there is fluff. so much fluff but also love and the unspoken promises of happily ever after. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.

(Armie POV) 

I was nervous. Not because I was nominated for a 2021 Oscars but because I knew TImmy would be there; because he was nominated too. It had been around 9 months since the day he had walked out of my life for good - 284 days to be exact but who was counting - and seeing him tonight filled me with anxiety so intense I could barely breathe. 

When Nick had found me curled up on the guesthouse couch that day, I think I had gone catatonic. It had taken him a long time to get me back to the main house, where a doctor was called and I was prescribed sleeping medication for a few days and advised that should my lethargy continue, I be taken to the emergency room. I snapped out of it eventually though. I had just needed time to process what had happened. What I had done. What HE had done. And to figure out where to go from here.

I didn’t hate him. I didn't blame him. I wasn’t even angry at the way he had handled things because we had both done so badly. I didn’t call. I didn’t text. Instead I went to the desert with my friends to regroup and reconnect with myself. I needed to learn who I was without him and without Liz and what I wanted this new life to be. I hadn’t been alone since I was 20 years old. I was almost 34 now and had no idea how to go through life without relying on someone else. But I was ready to learn.

I missed him. Everyday. But I didn’t talk about him. And when my friends talked shit - Nick was apoplectic because of what he had done and I found myself having to defend him which only saddened me more and created a vicious cycle that I was trying to break - I simply walked away. They were allowed their emotions and their opinions. Tim had been their friend too and they were also mourning a loss in a sense. But I didn’t have to bear witness to this. I didn’t want to hear that he was an asshole and a little shit and any number of things they referred to him as. Because whatever he was I had been worse. 

But I had to move on. Or at least find a way to live with it. I had children that needed me. Harper and Ford had their lives broken apart and they deserved a father that was whole and functional when they came home. 

I read a lot of self-help books. Once Nick had calmed down I spent a lot of time talking things through with him. I found a new house. Hired a decorator to help make it homey and inviting for the kids.

The divorce was finalized in December and though it had gotten a little difficult thanks to lawyers who were doing their jobs but got in the way, we had managed to come to an agreement with custody and alimony that suited both Liz and I. I was glad to have that chapter completed and was ready to start a new one with Liz as my friend. Because I desperately wanted that. Not only for Ford and Harper but also for me. 

Eventually I was able to start working again and that was a good reprieve from the constant carousel of Timmy memories my mind played for me when I was alone and had nothing to do. Busy was good. I liked being busy.

When the Academy Awards nominations were announced on March 15th it had been bittersweet. Of course I was ecstatic to be nominated. My agent had called to congratulate me but I could tell she was keeping something back. Eventually she had told me Timmy was also nominated. Not in the same category of course - Best Supporting for me and Best Actor for him - but still, both of us nominated the same year. My initial reaction was pure muscle memory. I grabbed my phone to call him so I could congratulate him and tell him how proud I was of him. I had pulled up his contact before realizing I couldn’t do that anymore. 

And then came the realization that Oscar nominations meant Oscars events. The luncheon, the press, the panels and inevitably, the award show itself. We would no doubt run into each other. As much as it excited me, it made me nervous. I didn’t want to put undue pressure on him and I didn’t want to force a meeting he wasn’t ready for or didn’t want.

I should have known I didn’t need to worry about it. Timmy’s people had called my people and arranged a meeting to discuss how best to split our time, avoiding any possible contact prior to the red carpet event itself. This stung me. If this is what he needed I was ok with it but it still hurt a little to know he would feel this was necessary.

During press I was inevitably asked about Timmy and his nomination and I answered truthfully. We had grown apart in recent years because of filming and personal obligations - ok that wasn't exactly the truth - but I would always be proud of him and this year was no different. He was an incredible actor and it was thrilling to be nominated at the same time he was; and yes it would be kismet or serendipity in a way should we both win but really it was an honor to just be nominated.

The day of the ceremony I had woken up to a house already full of people. My entire team was there including a stylist, a hairdresser, esthetician, the works. I hated these days. Usually Liz was around to help me get through it. This time I was going at it alone and it seemed so much more painful. 

As the day moved along, nerves began to upset my stomach and by the time I was being helped on with my suit jacket I felt like I was going to puke. I wanted to see him. I also didn’t want to see him. What would I say when I did. Would I even have the time to say anything or would he avoid me all together? I was certain our teams would have organized our arrivals time to be separate but I was still anxious. 

As I sat in the car with my PR rep, my knee bouncing rapidly, my hands twisting knots into my fingers, I tugged at the collar of my dress shirt and untied the top button. I’d removed the bowtie that was meant to go with my Armani suit because I couldn't breathe with it clenching at my throat. I’d invited Nick to be my plus one at the after parties but I’d be walking the red carpet alone. 

From the moment I exited the car I could tell there was electricity in the air. I’d walked the Oscars red carpet before, granted not as a nominee, but this felt different. It was as though people had been waiting for us to arrive. Which of course they had but again… this felt different. My rep felt it as well. Immediately she was on her phones, texting away trying to figure out what was going on.

“Armie, over here, Armie.” people were screaming from all angles as I was ushered through various press stations at lightning speed. I felt on high alert even though I didn’t know why and i could tell i was coming off stiff and nervous in interviews. I was being interviewed by Entertainment Tonight when I first saw him. 

He was at another press booth, one or two down, dressed in a dark suit that was unmistakably Hader, speaking animatedly to a journalist, the bright lights not phasing him anymore. His first time on the Oscars red carpet he had been a bundle of nerves, both good and bad. His family had been there to ground him but he was still texting me all day to make sure we would be arriving at the same time, wanting to make sure I would be there if he needed me. I had assured him he wouldn’t, that there was no place he belonged more than that carpet and even if he didn’t win this one, he would win many going forward. 

I thought back to 21 year old Timmy dressed in white, anxious but exhilarated looking to me for reassurance and a steading calming hand; and I looked at him now, 25 years old, beautiful and in control, certain in his stance and dememour but not cocky, comfortable in his element, clear in the knowledge that this is where he belonged. The pride I felt stung my eyes with tears I had to hold back.

He looked up just as I was about to look away and our eyes met. It lasted only a second but it was enough time for him to register and acknowledge my presence before being ushered to the next station a few feet away.

Things happened quickly after that. An event press director spotted us both, made a split second decision to reorganize and despite protest from my publicist and his, we were ushered straight to the photo op line. Lights were flashing blindingly, people were calling our names, it was chaos. 

‘’A picture of you together please, Armie, Timothee, over here.’’ dozens of photographers were screaming trying to get our attention. ‘’Just a few of you two together boys, you must both be so proud and excited for each other.’’ a press coordinator was saying, pushing up to stand close, our bodies touching.

‘’Hi.’’ Timmy said, looking up at me, a smile I hadn’t expected rendering me speechless so I simply nodded. This seemed to deflate him and he turned his eyes to the crowd of photographers instead.

I hesitated in placing an arm around his shoulders, not sure if he would allow me too and I didn’t want to feel him shrink away from me; but he was quicker than I was and I felt his hand come to rest lightly on my back. In the past his hand would have found its way under my jacket and I would have held him to my side with a hand on his ribcage. This time   
His hand stayed in the middle of my back and mine held his shoulder loosy. 

‘’Congratulations on your nomination .’’ I said eventually, my eyes straight ahead, a stiff smile hurting my cheeks. 

‘’Thanks. You too. They finally figured out how amazing you are.’’ he replied and the compliment almost buckled my knees.

But before I could say anything, we were being pulled in opposite directions, Timmy toward the end of the photo op line and me back to the press booths. I looked in his direction but he didn’t look back, instead allowing himself to be guided to a woman I didn’t recognize but seemed to be his date for the evening based on how he was holding her for the pictures. I wasn’t even jealous. In fact I was relieved. He seemed happy, whole and hadn’t run away from me the way I had assumed he would.

The rest of the red carpet events went by quickly. More interviews, more photo ops and then everyone was ushered inside to get seated for the opening monologue. About midway through the ceremony, I was in the makeup room getting screen ready to present the award for best animated movie when there was a commotion in the greenroom. My publicist went to check it out and came back looking frazzled. I asked her what was going on and she said it was Timmy. He was making a scene but I didn’t need to worry, it was being handled.

That didn’t make sense. Timmy wouldn’t make a scene. I asked about what and she said she didn’t know. I tried to get out of the makeup chair but she stopped me by pressing a hand on my shoulder. I wanted to go see. Something was wrong, I could feel it. I could hear him by now, telling Brian, his publicist, to let go of him. I was too quick for her to stop me this time and I rushed to the main greenroom area to find Timmy in a circle of reps, stage hands and his people. He spotted me immediately.

“Did you know?” he bellowed in my direction. He was angry. But I could tell it wasn’t at me. It looked like he was being held back by his date who was holding his hand tightly. No, she wasn’t holding him back I realized. He was holding on to her. For restraint. 

“What’s going on?” I asked in a steady voice and he seemed to calm when he heard me.

“Tim, Please.” His publicist begged trying to pull him back to his dressing room but Timmy’s free hand balled into a fist and he pulled his arm free.

“Come with me.” Timmy ordered, barreling through the crowd, pulling his friend behind him until he reached me and grabbed my hand so he could pull me behind him as well. He dragged us through the space, until he found an empty dressing room and once inside, closed the door and locked it. I hadn’t noticed who’s name was on the door. It didn’t matter.

We all stood silently in the room for a moment, Timmy taking deep breaths to calm himself. I looked from his date to him and back again. She just smiled, uncomfortably. Seeing this, he introduced us.

“Julie, Armie. Armie, Julie.” he said, waving from her to me and then for me to her before bending over to rest his hands on his thighs.

Immediately Julie was rubbing his back. There was a knock on the door and then another when we didn’t answer. We ignored it. When they began to pound Timmy shook his head frustratedly, brown curls bouncing around his head as he did so. I wanted to go to him and pull him into my arms to reassure him. But I didn’t. 

“Can someone tell me what’s going on please.” I ask, an edge to my voice because I was worried. This behavior was very unlike him. He was usually so compliant and ready to follow the rules. He was going rogue right now and that meant it was serious. 

He stood up straight and licked his lips before answering as though he was weighing his words. He even looked to her before he spoke. She smiled kindly and nodded almost as though she was giving him permission. No not permission.. It was something else. Courage maybe. Who was this person?

“Did you ask our teams to organize it so that we wouldn’t have to see each other during this award season?” he questioned, his tone softer than it had been previously. I couldn't answer however because he began to ramble. “Because I wanted to come and see you backstage since we weren't able to speak on the carpet but they wouldn’t let me. They said they had instructions that you weren’t to be disturbed!?. And then I heard Brian giving the press manager shit about having us pose together in the op line saying they had explicitly asked for that not to happen and I mean, I didn’t see you at any of the other events. Not even at the luncheon which… So i thought… shit Armie! Why weren’t you at the luncheon? Was it because of me? Did you not want to see me? Because I would have skipped it. it's your first time being nominated. You should have been there.” 

“I didn’t know.” I said quickly when he finally stopped to take a breath. “I thought it’s what you wanted. Your team called my team and they organized everything together. I thought I was because you didn’t want to see me.” 

“No. In fact I had asked them to call your people to see if they would organize a meeting or something so we could talk.” he seemed genuinely relieved.

“You could have just called.” I said with a smile I couldn’t hide. I felt elated. He didn’t hate me. He wanted to talk to me.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up.” he answered and the hurt in his voice made me want to wrap him in a hug again.

There was more loud banging on the door and this time, the woman, Julie, huffed exasperatedly.

“Can I go out there and tell them to fuck off?” she asked Tim sternly, a hand on her hip and the other extended toward the door. She had the look of an angry school teacher ready to reprimand a class of unruly boys. It was kinda hot. Timmy laughed and nodded. “I’ll be right outside.” she said to him and walked past me stopping just long enough to say “Be nice to him, or i’ll hurt you.” The top of her head was no higher than my sternum and yet I had no doubt she meant it.

“Yes Ma’am.” I reply contritely despite having done nothing wrong at the moment. But somehow I had the feeling she knew a lot of the bad things I had done and she clearly cared about him. So I felt she deserved the assurance that I wouldn't hurt him... ever again.

Julie opened the door just enough to be able to squeeze through and immediately there was a cacophony of voices yelling at us that they needed the room and that I was expected on stage in 9 minutes. The panic was general. Julie pulled herself through the opening and closed the door, leaving us alone for the first time since the guest house. There was an awkward silence during which we just looked at each other, Timmy pushing loose curls behind his ear to keep from fidgeting. 

“Give them a minute.” we heard Julie order and I snickered. I definitely didn’t want to be on her bad side.

“We don’t have a lot of time Tim. You said you wanted to see me. What’s up?” I pressed, hoping it didn’t sound like it was a bother. Because it wasn’t. In fact I wanted time to stop so we could stay here together. 

“Right. Yeah. Uh, I started seeing someone.” he blurted out and it was like a bolder hit my chest. 

“Oh, ummm, ok! That's great TIm. She seems nice.” I managed to get out, wanting to run from the room suddenly but unable to move. My answer seemed to confuse him.

“Huhn? No. I don’t mean… we’re not… I’m doing this all wrong.” he sounded frustrated with himself. “I mean I've been talking to someone. Like, a therapist.”

“Oh. ok!?” I said, still confused but bolder free.

“I know I don’t deserve it after what I did…” He paused, his brow furrowed in pain at the memory. “But I'd really like to talk to you. I’ve learned a lot of things about myself in therapy and although I’ve been talking to my parents who have been great and to Julie you’re the only person I really want to talk to about this. Like I said, I know I don’t deserve it and honestly Armie im SOOO sorry for what I did. I totally understand if you don’t want to. What I did was…. God it was disgusting and hurtful and cruel….”

“Timmy!” I said to stop him from rambling further. He wasn’t looking at me anymore; he looked ashamed. I crossed the distance between us and cupped his cheek with the palm of my hand to tilt his head up so he could see my face when I said: “I’d love to talk to you.”

I don’t remember much of the rest of that evening. It all seemed unimportant in comparison to the 3 minutes I had spent with Timmy in the dressing room, making plans to see each other in three days. 

He won. I didn’t. I didn’t care. Well, I cared a little but honestly it was true that it was an honor just to be nominated and frankly I felt like I had already won that day. I was on my feet the second his name was called and no one was prouder than i was. He looked genuinely surprised. It took him a few seconds to get to his feet. He hugged Julie, his face buried in her neck while she spoke in his ear and then he made his way to the stage. His speech was surprisingly concise despite the rambling. He thanked his family, his people, his friends. He thanked his director and the crew and then he paused for a moment, searching the crowd until he found me.

“Five years ago, I worked on a movie that changed my life.” he said, weighing his words, making sure I knew he was addressing me. “I wouldn’t be here today without the love and guidance of the people I met working on that project. So to them I want to say this: we had the stars, you and I. And this is given once only. I won’t forget it again. Thank you.” 

_________________________________________________________________________

I was nervous. I don’t know why but I was. Timmy and I had spoken many times since our talk after the Oscars. We had gone back and forth on an appropriate meeting place; the bad habit of avoiding being spotted in public still came easily. I had suggested his hotel but Julie was staying with him. He suggested my new place but I wasn’t comfortable with that; yet. So we had settled on a coffee place in West Hollywood that served New York Style bagels and terrible coffee. Once we had begun talking, coffee became dinner and then we had coffee again.

We hugged before going our separate ways. Timmy hesitated at first. He leaned in and then paused almost defying gravity and it made me laugh. I just had to open my arm and pull gently on his shoulder that he was falling into me. I kept it brief. I waited for the familiar sensation of his nose burying itself behind my ear but it didn’t come. I was both relieved it didn’t happen and longed for it too. We agreed to talk regularly and we did. It was great to get to know him again. We had both changed so much since the summer we had met and first fallen in love. 

It was now early December and I was pacing the piazzetta in front of Luca’s villa in Crema, waiting for Timmy’s taxi from the airport to drop him off. It was cold, probably below 30 degrees and a shimmering blanket of perfectly white snow was covering the ground. Christmas decorations lit up the store fronts and villas around me. I knew without hesitation that Timmy would love it. He had always wanted to see Cerma in the winter, having been scheduled to fly back out to shoot the fireplace scene back in 2016 but budgetary constraints had forced the snow to be faked and the scene had been shot along with the reste in the middle of june. 

We had always planned to come and visit Luca during the holidays while we were together but this had never happened. It was like one of many dreams we had had, fantasies we made up when we were alone and cuddled in bed, wishing for something neither of us really expected to happen. 

Which is why I had been so happy when Luca invited the entire Call Me By Your Name cast to his villa for an early holiday celebration. He finally had a working script for the sequel and he wanted us all to read it together.

We had all arrived the night before, Michael and Amira, Esther and Victoire and of course Vanda who lived nearby. Timmy’s flight from New York was delayed however because of bad weather and so here I was, freezing my ass off, waiting outside for his taxi under pretext of helping him with his bags but really just wanting a moment alone with him before they all threw themselves at him when he walked in. Finally the cab pulled up.

‘’What are you doing out here without a coat?” he asked, unfolding himself from the passenger side seat of the small european car in a way that was probably reminiscent of the way Oliver had unfolded himself from the car upon his arrival at the villa.

There was joy in his voice and wonder in his eyes at the sights around him. I was warm suddenly. Seeing him so elated radiated through me and thawed my chilled limbs. He paid the driver and came to help me take his luggage out from the back. He had learned to pack lighter since we’d been together, I noticed. He only had a backpack and a small carry-on. 

‘’Look at this,’’ Timmy beamed, arms stretched wide as he twirled to showcase the majesty that was the pizzetta at Christmas time, his boots leaving circular prints in the snow. 

He looked older again. He was a few weeks shy of turning 26 and had filled out and cut his hair short for a role. The cut suited him, I noted even if I missed the curls. It accentuated the sharpness of his jaw and the line of his nose. He was beautiful. He would always be beautiful. When he smiled, the softness that was inherently Timmy returned.

‘’Hi.’’ he said when he stopped in front of me, out of breath and eyes emerald green from the excitement. He hugged me. This time his nose found the back of my ear and I shivered. It was cold against my heated skin but I didn’t care. Good he smelled good. Would that smell ever stop making me weak in the knees?

I kissed his cheek and patted his back, signaling that we should head upstairs to where a gaggle of excited friends were waiting; really I did so because I needed him to pull away from me because I wasn’t able to pull away first. 

Excited was somewhat of an understatement. There were cheers and yelling and tons of patting on the back. Then the champagne was out and there were toasts to our oscar nominations and to Timmy's win. It felt good to be back here again. I realize now that this is my family. I read a quote once that said: ‘Having somewhere to go is home. Having someone to love is family. And having both is a blessing.’ These people, Luca and Timmy and our friends, the people that had been there when I finally came into myself and discovered who I was or rather who I wanted to be, this was my family and I loved them with a possessive fierceness that hurt my heart in the best way. Next year, I wanted the kids to come with me. Because this was their family too.

As there was limited space at Luca’s - it was a big house but there were many of us - I shared a guest room with Michael and Timmy bunked with the girls so that Amira could get her own room. Despite all the alcohol, I couldn't sleep; so I sat in the living room, reading a book I had found on one of Luca’s many bookshelves, bare feet outstretched toward the fireplace, sipping from two fingers of bourbon on ice hoping the added liquor would knock me out eventually.

We were going back to the villa the next day. A special visit organized by Luca as a treat for Timmy, so he could finally see it all decked out for the holidays under a blanket of snow and I wanted to be rested when we went.

“Shit. You scared me.” Timmy said, sounding startled. He had scared me as well. I hadn’t heard him come down. We both chuckled. “Can’t sleep?” he asked, and I shook my head. 

I watched as he tiptoed toward the christmas tree, a stunningly huge natural fir that was elegantly decorated in gold and red, and tucked a small package wrapped in silver glitter paper behind the other gifts on display. I raised an eyebrow and he smiled sheepishly. 

‘’I knew if I tried to give it to him, Luca wouldn't accept it saying I should buy myself something nice instead; so I figured I'd hide it. That way when he finds it christmas morning I’ll be far far away and he can’t hide it back in my bags.’’ 

He was right. Luca would definitely tell him to save his money and not spend it on him, ignoring the fact that money was definitely not a problem for him now. Luca and Tim had a very special bond that bordered on patriarchal. Luca treated Tim like a son and like most fathers, had a hard time accepting that his prodigy had grown up and didn’t need to be protected so much as guided now. I think we all felt that to some degree. Michael and Amira were the same. Proud but protective. The bonds we had formed that summer were knitted so tightly I don’t think that would ever change.

‘’Can I sit?’’ he asked, motioning to the spot on the couch next to me and I nodded, glad to be able to spend some time with him alone.

“Do you wanted one?’’ I asked, lifting up my drink. ‘’Or are you just gonna drink mine?’’

‘’I’ll just drink yours.’’ he laughed, and I laughed with him. He had always insisted he didn’t like hard liquor unless it was diluted with soda or juice and yet whenever I had had a glass of bourbon or scotch he inevitably ended up drinking most of it, taking it from my hands often to take small sips that made him wince adorably. 

‘’Why do you drink it if you don’t like it?’’ I chuckled when he did just that, adding a click of his tongue and a huff to the scrunching of his face. He handed me back my glass.

‘’Cause it tastes like you and I like you.’’ he stated, almost matter of fact were it not for the faint sad smile pulling at his slick lips.

‘’Must be why I still eat sour patch kids and suck on cherry lollipop.’’ I countered, hoping he would understand my meaning. Because, God did I like him too. He blushed but didn't look away. The sadness was gone from his eyes though and his smile widened.

We talked for a bit. He wanted to know about the kids and what the holidays were going to look like this year and would I spend Christmas day with Liz as I had last year. I was. This being friends thing was harder than I had anticipated it to be but we were committed to making it work. And holidays and birthdays were non-negotiable. We spent them together unless I was working. 

I told him she was seeing someone and that I didn’t like knowing that another man was spending time with my kids but that I had met him and he seemed decent enough. He told me I didn’t have to worry though, because there was no way that this guy was anywhere near as amazing as I was and Ford and Harper knew that. 

“I think you might be a little biased.” I told him and he shrugged.

“Maybe. But I know them. And I know you. So somehow I don’t think so.”

As predicted he finished my drink and I watched as he plopped the last remaining chunk of ice into his mouth and sucked on it briefly before chewing it with his back teeth. We sat in silence for a while, it was comfortable and relaxing. I watched as the glow of the flames danced with shadows across his face, accentuating the hollow of his cheeks and the sharp ridges of his cheekbones. He Looked lost in thought, biting his bottom lip hard enough that when he released it, it was swollen.

“What are you thinking about?” I asked and stretched a hand to cup his face so I could graze my thumb over his lip. It was meant to be soothing but I felt his breath hitch. He bit his lip again. “Stop that.” I said pulling it out from between his teeth with the same thumb. “Talk to me.”

“I want to kiss you.” he said, almost embarrassed. “I know we said we wouldn’t force things and that being here would probably bring up a bunch of feelings and we shouldn’t act on them because it might confuse things. But…”

There was no but. He hesitated for a second, mouth agape as though at any moment he would think of something more to add but didn’t so instead he just turned his face back toward the fire and out of my palm.

“I want to kiss you too.” I said then and waited for him to look at me, which he did slowly.

“But?” It was a question not an objection. He was waiting for the explanation to what he thought would be my refusal.

“No buts. I want to kiss you too. I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you on the red carpet. I wanted to kiss you when you pulled me into that dressing room and again when you walked into that cafe the day we spent together in west hollywood. I’ve wanted to kiss you every time you smiled at me through the computer screen and every time you laughed at one of my stupid jokes. I wanted to kiss you what you stepped out of the cab today and I want to kiss you now. I want to kiss you everyday until we’re old and gray and then I’ll want to kiss you some more.” 

He looked at me with that closed mouth smile that moved as he thought, head tilted to the side, eyes searching my face for answers to the silent questions parading through his mind. I could almost see them. He looked like Elio I thought; the way Elio would have looked if he had aged with Timmy. He was a man sitting before me now. The boy he had been when we had first met was gone but for that smile that moved with his thoughts.

“Say something.” I begged, after his silence extended into the uncomfortable and I could feel my nerves start to get the better of me.

“I’m nervous.” he admitted timidly and took my hand in his, lacing our fingers. 

“Me too.” I echoed and this made us both laugh.

He made the first move. Straddling my thighs the way he had done so many times before he cupped my face in his palms and tilted my head back so I was looking up at him. 

“I love you.” he said, voice quiet but sure. “You don’t have to say it back if you aren’t ready. You don’t have to say it at all. But I needed you to know.”

I was speechless. ‘TELL HIM YOU LOVE HIM TOO.” my brain was screaming at me but I couldn’t speak. He had taken my breath away. I just grinned stupidly and he grinned back, pressing his forehead against mine.

“I’m going to kiss you now, ok?” he asked and I nodded, closing my eyes and parting my lips expectantly.

His lips were warm and the tip of his nose was still cold against my cheek. His tongue brushed over my bottom lip as his mouth closed over mine and I felt all the tension and the sadness of the past evaporate. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him close and he wrapped his around my shoulders to pull me even closer. I don’t know how long we stayed like this, kissing softly and slowly, taking our time to rediscover each other. 

Kissing him tasted the same. Sweet from the candy he had sucked on early and whatever drink I had had after supper mingling on his tongue and dripping off his lips, hanging off his breath as he exhaled into my mouth when my fingers tickled a little patch of bare skin on his back between his sweater and his joggers.

“I love this Armie.” he said, nuzzling into my neck so we could catch our breath. Again he reminded me of Elio when we had laid in long grass at the berm, wind caressing our bodies and the sun warming our sink. Oliver had played it coy in that moment asking “us you mean?”. But I was no longer Oliver and he was no longer Elio so instead i said:

“And I love _**you**_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story began as a short one-shot that I wrote in one day following a tweet by Armie. That one tweet prompted this entire fic. I had no idea when I wrote part one that It would span almost 6 years and extend into the boys future like this. I struggled with a lot of this. Especially the two parts in Timmy's POV. was worried for most of part 4 that I wouldn't be able to figure out how to make TImmy and Armie find their way back to each other. But thankfully they did and I am so happy. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this journey.
> 
> I am @jolieprudence on tumblr. It's a new blog and I am very lax in posting but if you wanna come and chat i'd love to hear from you.
> 
> XX


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